Robert MacLeay wrote: > Some personal data points to add to the discussion: >
> Optical disks: > Go for the Gold! There is a hierarchy of long-term stability in the > optical disk market, with gold, silver, and blue dyes representing > decreasing stability. Guess which is hardest to find and most > expensive to buy. You have been warned. > > Diversity tip: When burning multiple copies of disks, burn each copy > onto a disk from a different manufacturing lot, or preferably a > different manufacturer. The point is that anyone can manufacture the > odd bad lot of disks. You don't want to find, ten years from now that > ALL your copies of the wedding were burned onto disks from a single > spindle that represented the same bad manufacturing run. > > Magnetic tapes: > Ignore this talk about stray magnetic fields; it is damned difficult > to erase a tape on purpose -- I've tried. It's degradation of the > substrate and binding that you have to worry about. My personal long > term experience is with analog (audio) tapes. Stuff from the 50s and > 60s on acetate media is a real problem; polyester media has proven > better. Video tapes from the 80s and 90s seem to suffer not from > breakage/stretching that the earlier tapes suffer from, but loss of > adhesion between the substrate and the magnetic material. I have not > encountered (yet?) any of these problems with my DAT tape archives, > although the oldest of them is no more than 15 years old. DAT drives, > on the other hand, cannot be used in the same sentence with the word > "longevitiy." Archiving data with tape means keeping a bare minimum of > two working drives in storage. My plan is to burn two copies of my photo archives. Then at about 5 years intervals copy them to whatever is current. I stopped worrying as much about the life of the media as the life of the equipment. In order to read a given archive you need: The Archives A suitable drive. A computer with the necessary interface. Software to access the media. A way to move the data to your current computer. The question you have to ask is, are you going to have all of those in working condition 10, 20 or 30 years down the road. I have too many times (not a lot but too many) pulled a piece of equipment that's been sitting on the shelf and found it wasn't working. Using CD-ROM or DVD-ROM (for now) I figure in 5 years I should have a computer that can read those formats. I'll then copy those files to what ever media is available then, provided it is relatively reliable. I figure this dynamic approach is preferable to a static one that may break over the long term. Additionally I also have all my photo files on both my personal laptop and a file server. -- Clark Martin Redwood City, CA, USA Macintosh / Internet Consulting "I'm a designated driver on the Information Super Highway" --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed Low End Mac's G3-5 List, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to g3-5-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to g3-5-list-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
