From: rineh...@uclink2.berkeley.edu (Richard Rinehart) Subject: Re: more about image storage
Hi Sasha, Leslie, et al, I'm glad to see discussion of this as it's something we all have to think about, but of course often gets left behind more deadline oriented issues. To answer your question Sasha, in part I would refer to the message below, which points out the relative fragility of even certain kinds of CD's to data-loss, but mostly I relied on the approach of my campus, UC Berkeley, for it's backup/storage solutions. Berkeley has been backing up campus servers (of all sorts) to DAT tape using a campus-wide backup service, relying on multiple copies and storing some in off-site locations as a guard against the fragility of the media (a given DAT is supposedly reliable for ten years). I get your point about backup vs. storage, but in many practical situations we rely on one to be the other (especially if the differences are not enough to warrent the extra time). We record redudant data on media much like DAT (Jaz: for now) and use our campus service to store extra copies off site in a storage facility in another state (Californians being constantly afraid of the "big one"). Of course when Zip turns to Jaz turns to MMM-bop or whatever comes next, we'll port upward. So those are the two prongs of my strategy: data-redudancy across geographic regions and porting because no current media is going to be "permanent" (a hundred year lifespan is considered "archival", and none of our current digital storage media are going to last a quarter of that! What will happen to all the CD-recorders/players when DVD is the standard, and last I heard the DVD standard was not backward compatible with ISO9660 "CD"). So, in a sense all our current strategies are backups, and we just need to balance between how often we'll need to port vs. the advantages of that media in robustness, time-savings, speed, cost, suitability and availability in our environment, etc. Anyway, this is my thinking, but it certainly could stand more investigation :) Richard Rinehart >Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 18:17:16 -0400 (EDT) >Message-Id: <970911180912_-365824...@emout06.mail.aol.com> >To: mc...@world.std.com >Subject: more about image storage > >We are multimedia producer/designers who have a big need for storing graphics >files. Over the years, we have used Syquest, optical and Jaz disks and >CD-ROM recordable discs. The optical disks are very slow and several have >been unreliable and/or unreadable. The Jaz disks seem fine and are much >faster, although we have heard rumors that others are having trouble. We >have an older CD-ROM recording system that is a little tempermental. but a >newer one should be fine. Some of our problem has been a factor of the hard >disk and not the disc-recorder per se. CD-ROM discs have been a good option >for us. However, the recordable type is not as durable as those made with a >glass master, and you must make sure that you don't stick something like a >post-it to the surface, as the film can lift right off. Hope this is >helpful. >Lois McLean, Producer >McLean Media Richard Rinehart | Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive Systems Manager & Education | University of California Technology Specialist | 2625 Durant, Berkeley, CA 94720-2250 rineh...@uclink2.berkeley.edu | http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/ & Board of Directors, Museum Computer Network, http://www.mcn.edu/
