And speaking from experience, it's _much_ more reliable than DVD-R or
CD-R as
long as the discs are correctly written in the first place.
For long-term storage, you have other risks to manage, not the
simple technical risk of "will my portable-USB disk be readable in
2038?".
If you are a home-based user, or sole practitioner, or lone-gunman
archivist, you should consider the possibility that in 20 years you
will no longer be able to remember how to process old disks and
files. Writing yourself some instructions would be essential. On
paper. And, too, regularly practicing on old media.
In the small-business case, your technology, media, even corporate
culture can result in unexpected destruction of "important" media
by unaware individuals who will make some unbelievable decisions.
Like "throw out any media smaller than 5TB as it's obsolete." "Toss
those old DLT-4000 drives as nobody uses them anymore." "Nobody
needs this box of discs..."
(No shit, it happened to me.)
In larger corporate cultures, for example with contract commitments
of decades, well, that's out of scope for this discussion. But
it's fun to imagine "How do I support WordPerfect 2.3 in 2039?".
J
