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I don't know why we don't have "digital safes" for our lives? People spend so much time creating those streams of data and just leave them hanging wherever on t

I don't know why we don't have "digital safes" for our lives? People spend so much time creating those streams of data and just leave them hanging wherever on the internet. It is just not typical behavior of humans to leave all their stuff on the streets. Current consumer-level storage devices aren't very safe for very-long-term storage ; i wonder if anyone is working on some kind of optical-based device or something else.

lemcoe9 8y ago
Like a CD or DVD?
- JeremyBanks 8y ago
  IIRC The lifespan of many CD-Rs isn't reliably above ten years.
  - mixmastamyk 8y ago
    Mine from the late 90s work fine, for now.
    - JeremyBanks 8y ago
      It seems like higher-quality CD-R should be able to last many decades, but some were produced using lower quality materials that are not as durable, and have been known to fail in as little as ten years. I haven't found a great reference, but it's discussed a bit at https://www.canada.ca/en/conservation-institute/services/conservation-preservation-publications/canadian-conservation-institute-notes/longevity-recordable-cds-dvds.html https://www.canada.ca/en/conservation-institute/services/con... They could be a safe choice if you know exactly the type of media you're recording on. I'd just like to caution people against assuming by default that their old CD-Rs will be stable long-term.
namibj 8y ago
BD-R is only plagued by delamination, which is gradual and can be countered by ~yearly visual inspections looking for delamination combined with some redundancy.
- verytrivial 8y ago
  M-Disk is a somewhat pricey but apparently legit archival format that appeared (from my point of view) just as the DVD/Blu-ray external writers market collapsed. I now have an external HDD in a portable fire-safe that I know could go from 100% working to 0% working at any moment. The thing I liked about optical is you could have some hope of recovering most data as the media degraded, and basically all with judicious use of ECC. It's a shame.
  - jstarfish 8y ago
    Those safes are prone to mold. Not a good place to store backup mechanical equipment unless you compensate by opening it often and re/placing dessicant packets.
dd36 8y ago
MDisc
SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
Is a NAS with RAID not safe for very-long-term storage? That solution has served me well so far, anyway.
- eythian 8y ago
  No, the regular home consumer won't know what to do in 5 years time when one of the disks is failing but all they can buy is SATA when it's expecting an IDE connector. Also, next to no one knows what those terms even mean.

lemcoe9 8y ago

Like a CD or DVD?

JeremyBanks 8y ago
IIRC The lifespan of many CD-Rs isn't reliably above ten years.
- mixmastamyk 8y ago
  Mine from the late 90s work fine, for now.
  - JeremyBanks 8y ago
    It seems like higher-quality CD-R should be able to last many decades, but some were produced using lower quality materials that are not as durable, and have been known to fail in as little as ten years. I haven't found a great reference, but it's discussed a bit at https://www.canada.ca/en/conservation-institute/services/conservation-preservation-publications/canadian-conservation-institute-notes/longevity-recordable-cds-dvds.html https://www.canada.ca/en/conservation-institute/services/con... They could be a safe choice if you know exactly the type of media you're recording on. I'd just like to caution people against assuming by default that their old CD-Rs will be stable long-term.

namibj 8y ago

BD-R is only plagued by delamination, which is gradual and can be countered by ~yearly visual inspections looking for delamination combined with some redundancy.

verytrivial 8y ago
M-Disk is a somewhat pricey but apparently legit archival format that appeared (from my point of view) just as the DVD/Blu-ray external writers market collapsed. I now have an external HDD in a portable fire-safe that I know could go from 100% working to 0% working at any moment. The thing I liked about optical is you could have some hope of recovering most data as the media degraded, and basically all with judicious use of ECC. It's a shame.
- jstarfish 8y ago
  Those safes are prone to mold. Not a good place to store backup mechanical equipment unless you compensate by opening it often and re/placing dessicant packets.

dd36 8y ago

MDisc

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago

Is a NAS with RAID not safe for very-long-term storage? That solution has served me well so far, anyway.

eythian 8y ago
No, the regular home consumer won't know what to do in 5 years time when one of the disks is failing but all they can buy is SATA when it's expecting an IDE connector. Also, next to no one knows what those terms even mean.