I think the key to the answer is in the word technologIES. Don't put all
your eggs in one or two baskets. Multiple copies in multiple locations using
varying methods. Online is viable, but if you use a free service there is
more risk of the company going belly up. But free or paid, in the event of a
financial failure is your data placed in an escrow account so you can
recover it? If a paid service, what happens to the information upon your
death if no one takes over the account? I also agree with a previous message
that there is still a place for paper as one component of a preservation
plan. It is not as good as electronic storage for day to day use but has the
advantage of not requiring any technology beyond education and eyesight. For
archival storage, choosing the right paper and ink and storing under the
proper environment is also important. Even though home-burned CDs are now
recognized to have less life span than anticipated, sending copies to
relatives occasionally is still a reasonable practice as most future disk
drives will remain backwards compatible in the near term.
We need to be careful as this topic is quickly drifting away from a Legacy
issue. I think this is my final on the subject.
Gary Templeman
----- Original Message -----
From: "JLB" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2008 7:42 PM
Subject: Re: [LegacyUG] Warning, Storage Disks
While we're traveling down the road of what must be making some people
suddenly itchy, if you were to look into your crystal balls, which
technologies would be most likely to keep our genealogy files accessible
in the long-term? Online backup?
-----
JL
JLog - simple computer technology for genealogists
http://www.jgen.ws/jlog
Gary Templeman wrote:
Smart people will migate as technology changes. But frankly, not everyone
is diligent in that regard. We don't need to wait for later generations
for the problem to crop up. I still get reports of people who have taken
a break from genealogy and now want to resurrect data from PAF 2.31 that
they had stored on 5 1/4 floppies. While it is still possible to pull the
data off and convert it, there is a big hassle factor in finding someone
with the right hardware and software.
Gary Templeman
----- Original Message ----- From: "Jenny M Benson"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2008 2:24 PM
Subject: Re: [LegacyUG] Warning, Storage Disks
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote
People will always be able to read paper prints. But can we really be
sure
that CDs, DVD, even external drives will still be easily readable 20
years
from now without esoteric equipment? If kept in some program format
(Legacy, or other genealogy program) will someone 50 years from now be
able
to find a copy of the program (or even Windows) to open these files?
But a type of storage media doesn't suddenly become obsolete overnight
and few people will abandon their Legacy tree for 50 years.
When we know a new medium is taking over (as when 3.5" disks began to
take over from floppies) we will migrate our working files and backups.
If Legacy announce that an older version of the program will no longer
be supported and its files will not be read by a new version, we will
upgrade Legacy. If we pass on having made no arrangements for the
dispersal of our records and no family members are interested, our hard
drives will be wiped and our disks put in the trash.
--
Jenny M Benson
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