[list] [ale] Need advice on home back-up solution

[James P. Kinney III]

NASA has hit this wall. They have data of backup media that no devices
exist that can extract the data. They have other data stored intact in
machine readable format, but no one alive knows the format. 

There are several projects that deal with extracting data from scanned
images of plots, such as what was produced by many analytical devices
prior to digital data collection. 

The only real solution is the migration of data from one medium to
another. If it never needs reprocessing, laser print onto acid-free
paper is rather permanent. There are also archival quality ink jet inks
and dyes now. The dye-sublimation printers, while extremely expensive,
have an incredibly long life expectancy for printed material. I can't
recall the source, but it was something in the hundreds of years. 

>From what I have been reading on this thread, the easiest to use setup

is most likely the hard drive caddy and the safe deposit box. There are
some services that offer remote backup storage space as well. 

On Mon, 2003-09-29 at 20:59, Sean Kilpatrick wrote:
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> On Monday 29 September 2003 04:54 pm, Bob Toxen wrote:
> |  Most tapes should be good for 5-20 years.
> 
> But when the hardware dies five or ten years from now,
> can it be replaced? I gave up on tape backups because
> of this _minor_ problem. I was using one of the cheaper
> tape drives and when it died I discovered that the
> newer/replacement drives couldn't read my data -- 
> formatting problems. I was not amused.
> 
> By way of example, I suspect it would be non-trivial to
> find a working 5.25 floppy drive and get it to work on
> a modern computer.  I suspect finding a working 8" floppy
> drive and getting it to read data would be even more so.
> 
> What I am trying to say is that the rapidly changing world
> of small computers makes it very difficult to predict what
> sort of storage media will still be readable in 20 years.
> I store my photos on CDs, but I am confident that at some
> point in the next five years or so I am going to have to
> copy them _all_ to some other sort of backup media.
> 
> Look at audio cassette tapes for example. In the space of 18
> months the pre-recorded ones completely disappeared from
> the market.  They were on dealer shelves in June, 2001,
> but were gone by October, 2002.  In another year or so I
> doubt you will even be able to purchase a combo radio/
> cassette player for your car.  Same thing goes for video
> tape players.  I'd be surprised if parts are available to
> repair them in another three or four years. I already am
> prepared (mentally anyway) for the day when I will have to
> copy my video tape library over to DVD or lose it because I
> can't replace a dead tape player.
> 
> Sean
> 
> 
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-- 
James P. Kinney III          \Changing the mobile computing world/
CEO & Director of Engineering \          one Linux user         /
Local Net Solutions,LLC        \           at a time.          /
770-493-8244                    \.___________________________./
http://www.localnetsolutions.com

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7
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