3 ms·

Most of the media we use today is only good for a handful of decades at absolute most. If you want something to last more than a century, you're looking at slig

Most of the media we use today is only good for a handful of decades at absolute most. If you want something to last more than a century, you're looking at slightly exotic archival gade blu-rays, or something even more exotic like laser etched quartz or whatever. Hard drives are a non-starter. Mechanical drives have the obvious mechanical issues, and over long term can develop bitrot. SSDs store bits as static charges which slowly deplete. Magnetic tapes seem to be the best option, but require climate control to last for more than a decade or so. We don't really have any good way to store digital data unpowered for long periods of time. The best right now is just duplicating it across multiple types of media and replacing each as it fails, which requires active attention and functional infrastructure.

scubbo 4y ago
> The best right now is just duplicating it across multiple types of media and replacing each as it fails, which requires active attention and functional infrastructure. Yes, that was what I initially claimed. No-one's claiming that digital media can be copied without power, no-one's claiming that a single digital storage artifact has a longer lifespan than (e.g.) a clay tablet. You appear to be arguing for a position ("sophisticated digital media storage artifacts have an individual shorter shelf-life than rudimentary ones") that no-one is arguing against.
- omniglottal 4y ago
  You appear to be arguing for a solution (active upkeep) which cannot apply to the actual problem in this context (discontinuity of civilization).
  - scubbo 4y ago
    We are arguing past each other. I 100% agree that electronic records require active upkeep. I am not arguing, nor have I ever argued, that they can outlast a discontinuity of civilization. If your threat model is addressing that risk, then electronic media is a poor solution. If your threat model instead wants to preserve huge quantity of information in an easily accessible format and you can assume the continued availability of electricity and maintenance, electronic media (with active upkeep) is a better option than durable physical record-keeping. I was (and still am) just pointing out that different "solutions" apply to different problems. There _is no_ single "problem in this context" - I agree that one of the solutions is ill-suited to the problem you're choosing to highlight, while maintaining that it is well-suited to another problem. (Please note that I'm not /u/samatman!)

scubbo 4y ago

> The best right now is just duplicating it across multiple types of media and replacing each as it fails, which requires active attention and functional infrastructure. Yes, that was what I initially claimed. No-one's claiming that digital media can be copied without power, no-one's claiming that a single digital storage artifact has a longer lifespan than (e.g.) a clay tablet. You appear to be arguing for a position ("sophisticated digital media storage artifacts have an individual shorter shelf-life than rudimentary ones") that no-one is arguing against.

omniglottal 4y ago
You appear to be arguing for a solution (active upkeep) which cannot apply to the actual problem in this context (discontinuity of civilization).
- scubbo 4y ago
  We are arguing past each other. I 100% agree that electronic records require active upkeep. I am not arguing, nor have I ever argued, that they can outlast a discontinuity of civilization. If your threat model is addressing that risk, then electronic media is a poor solution. If your threat model instead wants to preserve huge quantity of information in an easily accessible format and you can assume the continued availability of electricity and maintenance, electronic media (with active upkeep) is a better option than durable physical record-keeping. I was (and still am) just pointing out that different "solutions" apply to different problems. There _is no_ single "problem in this context" - I agree that one of the solutions is ill-suited to the problem you're choosing to highlight, while maintaining that it is well-suited to another problem. (Please note that I'm not /u/samatman!)