3 ms·
Quality consumer media in a current format, store three copies each in two locations. Evaluate integrity of the data each year to delay bit-rot and make new cop
by lizardactivist 4y ago
Quality consumer media in a current format, store three copies each in two locations. Evaluate integrity of the data each year to delay bit-rot and make new copies as needed, and decide if the format is beginning to disappear and it's time to create six new copies in a modern format.
It's cheaper and easier than finding media that you can literally forget about for decades and still find intact, and easily recoverable.
- KronisLV 4y ago> ...store three copies each in two locations. > ...decide if the format is beginning to disappear and it's time to create six new copies in a modern format. This is funny to me because you might end up with way too many copies to manage. But the advice about formats and the backups needing to be "alive" is good, even if nobody might want to hear that due to it needing procedures built around it. Most people would simply want to make backups and have them sit somewhere for decades, which sadly isn't as reliable of an approach.
- lizardactivist 4y agoTwo copies could be enough if the filing system has mechanisms for verifying file integrity, so never more than four copies in total - no point accumulating them. It's possible flash-based media could be left unused for two to three years before needing to be powered up, but I think this time-span gets shorter as the storage density increases.