daveinspain Posted March 1, 2013 Share Posted March 1, 2013 I was just thinking about reliable storage for history... Carving in stone works really well. The Egyptians, Mayans, Romans...ect. have proved that. Writing in books works reasonable well too. If the written word is stored well it will last centuries. Now we have digital storage, hard drive, CD, usb stick and various other means of storing information. The big unknown is how long will it last. Will a hard drive that's manufactured today still work in 500 years? Will the plastic of a CD last 500 or 1000 years? Imagine if in 5000 years all our stored history was useless or not readable. The beings in existence, at that time, would have no idea of what happened to us or how we lived or why we perished... Sometimes I think too much... :blink: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gruffchris Posted March 1, 2013 Share Posted March 1, 2013 Good question. I first thought of "hard drives" and will the data be able to be read after x amount of years. I have about 3-4 thousand books, that I have downloaded, they work fine for now but who knows what the future brings. One thing is for certain they wont be lasting as long as something set in stone. Maybe you have unwittingly answered The Fermi paradox? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riffster Posted March 1, 2013 Share Posted March 1, 2013 Stone works well? They are still trying to figure out the Egyptians and they got the Mayan's all wrong because we can't read what they wrote. Digital storage does not last forever, there is a documentary on how the Library of Congress tests this stuff, one of the most interesting thing I saw in this documentary is how CDs made with a certain kind of glue do not hold well in the heat of a car for instance. Then there is the $20,000 USD turntable they use to digitize old records for posterity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Farnsbarns Posted March 1, 2013 Share Posted March 1, 2013 I believe we passed then point of lost information. Of course a CD will not be likely readable in 500 years but is will be so easy to move the information to a new medium as and when because it is digital. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hall Posted March 1, 2013 Share Posted March 1, 2013 I wish we would have stopped at the steam engine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Westly West Posted March 1, 2013 Share Posted March 1, 2013 Genetic encryption... Lasts as long as the species. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabs Posted March 1, 2013 Share Posted March 1, 2013 The saying is.. If its not backed up twice then its not backed up at all :) And now we use digital storage, once something is digital copying it over is easy so you will just move to the new tech as it evolves.. CDs and Harddrives are proven to degrade over time.. Solid State stuff like USB hard drives etc, who knows at the moment.. They do seem to be pretty darn tough though.. (I have one of those Pretec ones).. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tSDDjVlzj4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZenKen Posted March 1, 2013 Share Posted March 1, 2013 Technology marches on. My link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saturn Posted March 1, 2013 Share Posted March 1, 2013 The saying is.. If its not backed up twice then its not backed up at all :) So whatever I back up isn't really backed up and whatever I delete isn't really deleted? We can't win either way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlie brown Posted March 1, 2013 Share Posted March 1, 2013 Backup, backup, backup! Store in seperate locations, and make "hard copies," if possible. I can't tell you, the number of times, I've (already) lost images, due to "mysterious" glitches in both hard dive, and DVD storages. Never mind the media cards, that have mysteriously "failed" both in camera, and trying to transfer, to DVD or Harddrive. When I worked for a well know Movie/Entertainment studio, there was a case, where another photographer, went to Italy, to document one of the new cruise ships. Prior, to his return, and somewhere in the transfer process, that whole European trip, image wise, was lost, due so called "Human Error," during the transfer stage. That error was NOT the fault of the photographer, but on the other end. So, his trip was extended, and he got to START ALL OVER, AGAIN! Luckily, at that time, we were shooting both digital, and slide film. So, at least they had the slides, from the original shoot, but wanted it re-done digitally, as well. So, based on a lot of personal, and severl good friend's experiences, I don't trust "Digital," for long term storage, of anything truly "important," at least. Too many "Ghosts, in the Machinery!" CB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aster1 Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 Best I have every been able to read on long term storage is to use Thumb drives & store in a fire box. Optical, unless commercially pressed is out, Hard Disk is for sure out, but USB Thumb drives & have read countless times are predicted for 30yr. storage or longer. Don't know about hundreds of years. Hells Bells, sometime I have trouble getting from Monday to Friday let alone several lifetimes!!! Aster Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyingarmadillo Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 Burnable CDs, DVDs and BluRay use vegetable based dies, very much like printer ink, but considerably less stable. The best commercially burned discs use metal based technology and will last much longer. I'm not sure about practical lifetimes, but I know that it was recommended that you re-burn any critical CD/DVD data every 2-3 years if you're using the consumer discs. Hard drives and electronic storage are supposed to last longer but in theory, one good solar flare/storm could wipe them all out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabs Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 Hard drives and electronic storage are supposed to last longer but in theory, one good solar flare/storm could wipe them all out. At which point I think we will have way more to worry about than whats going to happen to our digital pictures and music :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocky4 Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 Recently, DNA was used for data storage. It supposed to last for thousands of years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riffster Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 I use Carbonite, I hope they are backing up my backup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocketman Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 I have a mirror drives on my PC and my laptop (darn laptop costs as much as three Les Pauls!). I also store everything on an external drive and a network drive. As things evolve you'll be able to move them. But what happens to stuff that you don't move? This is a serious question. One that higher ups are thinking about. This is why keeping up is so important. I wish that they did this better in the early days of the space program. We cannot build the Saturn V rocket because many of the blueprints are lost! It's a shame, but underscores the importance of keeping everything up to date when storing information. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Izzy Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 I was just thinking about reliable storage for history... Carving in stone works really well. The Egyptians, Mayans, Romans...ect. have proved that. Writing in books works reasonable well too. If the written word is stored well it will last centuries. Now we have digital storage, hard drive, CD, usb stick and various other means of storing information. The big unknown is how long will it last. Will a hard drive that's manufactured today still work in 500 years? Will the plastic of a CD last 500 or 1000 years? Imagine if in 5000 years all our stored history was useless or not readable. The beings in existence, at that time, would have no idea of what happened to us or how we lived or why we perished... Sometimes I think too much... :blink: THIS is why I write handwritten letters and write in my journal and read books, hard and soft covers. No digital for me as much as I can because I reckon I wanna leave something behind even if it is in a landfil. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Murph Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 THIS is why I write handwritten letters and write in my journal and read books, hard and soft covers. No digital for me as much as I can because I reckon I wanna leave something behind even if it is in a landfil. That's a good idea. I did a will last year, and even though I DID NOT leave Rocketman my ES-339, it IS written on paper and should last hundreds of years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZenKen Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 it IS written on paper and should last hundreds of years. Unless there is a fire, or a flood. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocketman Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 That's a good idea. I did a will last year, and even though I DID NOT leave Rocketman my ES-339, it IS written on paper and should last hundreds of years. That's ok. I still left my 339 to you Murph in my will. Too bad it's stored on an 8-track cassette storage medium. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Murph Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 That's ok. I still left my 339 to you Murph in my will. Too bad it's stored on an 8-track cassette storage medium. Doh.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazytrain513 Posted March 4, 2013 Share Posted March 4, 2013 I think a worthy way to make sure nothing gets lost is to 1) Back it up somewhere such as a CD, Hard drive, USB, etc. 2) Back it up to the cloud. They say anything/everything you put on the internet is there virtually forever even if you "delete" it. And I'm sure that with the way technology is going, in 500 years, it'll be even easier to retrieve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted March 4, 2013 Share Posted March 4, 2013 It's a horrid bit of increasingly ephemeral records, but not entirely thanks to the media, but as much by the mindset of third or fourth generation caretakers. For example, few newspapers today have a librarian and library that runs from the newspaper's early days as a going business up until today's digital formats of text and photos. Many - far too many - have just plain dumped millions of negatives. I'm an archives nut - I've been involved in a cupla museums and history research organizations as an officer or board member - and I've discovered we lose far, far more regardless of medium simply because folks don't care. The media themselves? There's no question that longevity of media has dropped in a geometrical progression with increases in technology. Yeah, I'm a fiend on backing up backups of material I've done - but it seems regardless that there are interim periods when unexpected glitches that are both human and material, will destroy stuff one wishes had been saved. I can't forget a postcard set of Kodachrome slides I shot in the late 1960s of Wounded Knee" for example. And that's just minor compared to a body of history now forgotten just within my worktime. Even were shots I did today to be virtually carved in some modern stone? My cynicism suggests they'd be dumped regardless by another generation saving room for "important and relevant" usage like a corporate coffee break room. m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabs Posted March 4, 2013 Share Posted March 4, 2013 It's a horrid bit of increasingly ephemeral records, but not entirely thanks to the media, but as much by the mindset of third or fourth generation caretakers. For example, few newspapers today have a librarian and library that runs from the newspaper's early days as a going business up until today's digital formats of text and photos. Many - far too many - have just plain dumped millions of negatives. I'm an archives nut - I've been involved in a cupla museums and history research organizations as an officer or board member - and I've discovered we lose far, far more regardless of medium simply because folks don't care. The media themselves? There's no question that longevity of media has dropped in a geometrical progression with increases in technology. Yeah, I'm a fiend on backing up backups of material I've done - but it seems regardless that there are interim periods when unexpected glitches that are both human and material, will destroy stuff one wishes had been saved. I can't forget a postcard set of Kodachrome slides I shot in the late 1960s of Wounded Knee" for example. And that's just minor compared to a body of history now forgotten just within my worktime. Even were shots I did today to be virtually carved in some modern stone? My cynicism suggests they'd be dumped regardless by another generation saving room for "important and relevant" usage like a corporate coffee break room. m Kinda like this article on the Gibson page.. http://www2.gibson.com/News-Lifestyle/News/en-us/AC-DC-And-Metallica-Tapes-Could-Be-Destroyed.aspx An early version of AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” and Metallica performing with Marianne Faithfull could be destroyed if not claimed. The recordings are among a slew of tapes from the old Windmill Lane recording studios near Dublin, still looking for a home. Windmill Lane is famous for its use by U2. The Rolling Stones, Status Quo, Kate Bush, R.E.M and Elvis Costello have also recorded there. The Irish Times reports more than 1,000 tapes, weighing a ton, which are filling up the attic in the new Windmill Lane studios in Ringsend, Dublin, are waiting to be reclaimed by the artists or recording companies that recorded them. The two-inch multitrack tapes date from the days before digital technology took over; the new studio plans to begin destroying the tapes in May if they remain unclaimed. Its sad to think such history will just get destroyed.. But at the end of the day what you gonna do with it? If all of those recordings have been copied and digitised or just arnt useable commercially then no one cares I guess.. Just seems something a bit wrong about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted March 4, 2013 Share Posted March 4, 2013 Rabs... Here's where "government" and "restrictive laws" get involved in the human factors of destruction of various materials. Given international copyright law and various other laws covering provenance of various materials, I'd honestly not accept the material you mentioned regardless that I had a "music museum" and archive. The bottom line is that cost of taking possession of these pieces even if "given away" is far less than potential future legal liability. That's why most museums today have stringent rules covering accession of materials. Heck, I hadda watch as years of news coverage photos went into a big brown dumpster - recording presidential visits, disasters, etc... I rescued one set of film I recognized on the top of the heap that I had shot, and gave it to the state archive that gladly received it. The rest dating back to around 1900 was gone to make way for a coffee room. Unfortunately current copyright law can at times appear to be a significant liability to preservation of our history. m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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