DrZoidberg
Member
I have some rather large files that I want to keep from degrading for 100s of years if possible. Is M-disc storage a gold standard or is there something better?
Long Term Archival Storage. What is the way to go?
- Thread starter DrZoidberg
- Start date
gcollins1972
New Member
There is no easy solution for you really. The file formats you are using for those files will probably become obsolete. You must convert them to newer file formats every once in a while. Like ever 10 years or so. Or when your file format just about becomes obsolete.
For actual physical storage. I would pick some big company that will be around forever and will stay around forever. Like Microsoft. I would pick SSD storage devices (tier). Writes to ssd drives eventually destroy them. But reading data off ssd drives does not damage them.
If whomever you pick online to store all your files on. Stops that service or goes out of business. Files will have to be moved to another storage provider.
Microsoft in the cloud makes copies of your stored data in various regions like the western US and the eastern US by default I think. Microsoft Azure, I think you need to find out about.
Pay a monthly fee depending on the space you use, etc. MS does all the hardware maintenance, upgrades, etc.
Even just version changes of windows, apple, Linux. Will cause you problems eventually. The company owning the file format, going out of business, being bought out, retiring a file format. Will cause serious long term problems.
Nothing electronic or with stored data on it, lasts 100s of years, without maintenance, replacement, upgrades, etc. Actual physical devices that is.
Plastic will last longer than paper, generally speaking.
Toner for a laser printer is better than ink from a ink jet printer. Generally speaking.
Copper and gold "paper" especially, can last a long time with words cut, chiseled, stamped into them. Metal thick foil "paper".
M-disk looks like it uses a dye (chemical) that will degrade over time. The more heat/light exposure, the faster it will degrade.
Stamped disks use aluminum foil with plastic over it. A cd or dvd you buy. Eventually because it is air permable the aluminum will oxidize and be ruined. If they switched to actual gold foil (24 k). That would not be a issue. Then the plastic would probably degrade and become the issue. Scratches, etc, too. CDs when they 1st came out had a protective cases over them. Kind of looked like a floppy disk but bigger. You would want that and a DVD burner/reader that lets you insert the cd, DVD with the protective case into it.
I am hoping some programmer will come out with (self repairing files). Works like RAID 5 does on hardware drives. But done in the file itself (the software file itself). A file format. So the file itself would recover from a bad cluster, on a hard drive for example. Run in the actual operating itself, eventually I hope. Part of all file format by default, eventually I hope. The file format if using the RAID 5 algorithm will use 1 more cluster, or default storage unit, on that physical storage device. Whatever that storage device uses.
Or one more cluster, per so many clusters. Like 32 clusters get used instead of 31 for parity data recover. Writes will be slower. Not much of a issue for most people, especially if using SSD storage devices. Can use checksums to like a Ethernet packet does, can add hashes instead of checksums, to make sure data recovered is correct to.
For actual physical storage. I would pick some big company that will be around forever and will stay around forever. Like Microsoft. I would pick SSD storage devices (tier). Writes to ssd drives eventually destroy them. But reading data off ssd drives does not damage them.
If whomever you pick online to store all your files on. Stops that service or goes out of business. Files will have to be moved to another storage provider.
Microsoft in the cloud makes copies of your stored data in various regions like the western US and the eastern US by default I think. Microsoft Azure, I think you need to find out about.
Pay a monthly fee depending on the space you use, etc. MS does all the hardware maintenance, upgrades, etc.
Even just version changes of windows, apple, Linux. Will cause you problems eventually. The company owning the file format, going out of business, being bought out, retiring a file format. Will cause serious long term problems.
Nothing electronic or with stored data on it, lasts 100s of years, without maintenance, replacement, upgrades, etc. Actual physical devices that is.
Plastic will last longer than paper, generally speaking.
Toner for a laser printer is better than ink from a ink jet printer. Generally speaking.
Copper and gold "paper" especially, can last a long time with words cut, chiseled, stamped into them. Metal thick foil "paper".
M-disk looks like it uses a dye (chemical) that will degrade over time. The more heat/light exposure, the faster it will degrade.
Stamped disks use aluminum foil with plastic over it. A cd or dvd you buy. Eventually because it is air permable the aluminum will oxidize and be ruined. If they switched to actual gold foil (24 k). That would not be a issue. Then the plastic would probably degrade and become the issue. Scratches, etc, too. CDs when they 1st came out had a protective cases over them. Kind of looked like a floppy disk but bigger. You would want that and a DVD burner/reader that lets you insert the cd, DVD with the protective case into it.
I am hoping some programmer will come out with (self repairing files). Works like RAID 5 does on hardware drives. But done in the file itself (the software file itself). A file format. So the file itself would recover from a bad cluster, on a hard drive for example. Run in the actual operating itself, eventually I hope. Part of all file format by default, eventually I hope. The file format if using the RAID 5 algorithm will use 1 more cluster, or default storage unit, on that physical storage device. Whatever that storage device uses.
Or one more cluster, per so many clusters. Like 32 clusters get used instead of 31 for parity data recover. Writes will be slower. Not much of a issue for most people, especially if using SSD storage devices. Can use checksums to like a Ethernet packet does, can add hashes instead of checksums, to make sure data recovered is correct to.
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