3 ms·

The general concept isn't specific to magnetic media at all, although the underlying mechanisms vary. Any EPROM/EEPROM/Flash will leak charge from its cells an

The general concept isn't specific to magnetic media at all, although the underlying mechanisms vary. Any EPROM/EEPROM/Flash will leak charge from its cells and eventually lose data if not periodically refreshed. Even some mask ROMs develop bad bits over time due to latent manufacturing defects. Many CD-Rs and DVD-Rs recorded ~15-20 years ago already have uncorrectable errors (due to the dye degrading?). Pressed discs are nominally immune, but may have manufacturing defects that lead to progressive failure (e.g. "laser rot" on LaserDiscs manufactured by certain plants).

mjevans 8y ago
I was thinking about this the other day. Would a good solution for /really/ long term storage be a kind of WORM ROM based on fuses that could be burned to 'program' a given area? (I think some EPROM might be this, but I'm talking about more storage density than even current top end flash drives.) Obviously you'd only want to use this for the LONG term storage, but if it's cheep enough I could see it being useful in the same use cases that existing optical media were and even in roles like backup / audit logs.
- dredmorbius 8y ago
  This is a complex problem. https://www.archives.gov/preservation/technical/storage-strategy.html https://www.archives.gov/preservation/technical/storage-stra... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_preservation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_preservation The Internet Archives preferred bmedium for book storage is ... books. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/aug/01/internet-archive-books-brewster-kahle https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/aug/01/internet-archi... Quartz glass is a proposed medium, with a potential life of 300 million years. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/data-saved-quartz-glass-might-last-300-million-years/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/data-saved-quartz...

mjevans 8y ago

I was thinking about this the other day. Would a good solution for /really/ long term storage be a kind of WORM ROM based on fuses that could be burned to 'program' a given area? (I think some EPROM might be this, but I'm talking about more storage density than even current top end flash drives.) Obviously you'd only want to use this for the LONG term storage, but if it's cheep enough I could see it being useful in the same use cases that existing optical media were and even in roles like backup / audit logs.

dredmorbius 8y ago
This is a complex problem. https://www.archives.gov/preservation/technical/storage-strategy.html https://www.archives.gov/preservation/technical/storage-stra... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_preservation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_preservation The Internet Archives preferred bmedium for book storage is ... books. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/aug/01/internet-archive-books-brewster-kahle https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/aug/01/internet-archi... Quartz glass is a proposed medium, with a potential life of 300 million years. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/data-saved-quartz-glass-might-last-300-million-years/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/data-saved-quartz...