Long-term external storage for a guy with little computer knowledge

[Stoneheart]

this is all stupid... print out everything, laminate it and store it in random places in your home.
nobody knows how magnets work and disc get destroyed from touching them.

i can just scan what ever i need. also a little pro tip. use asbestos to make your boxes fire and Fed proof-.

 

[Rock Eater]

Has anyone suggested tape drives yet?
Initial investment cost is crazy but ultimate long-term storage solution

https://youtu.be/lO-SAzFaN18?si=5tMQcc5FmVZ8e_LV

 

[Vecr]

Has anyone suggested tape drives yet?
Initial investment cost is crazy but ultimate long-term storage solution

https://youtu.be/lO-SAzFaN18?si=5tMQcc5FmVZ8e_LV

You have to buy a new reader and new tapes before the ones you have go obsolete, otherwise they don't claim durability. It's not a one time thing, unless you don't plan on living very long.

 

[Kosher Dill]

Yeah, tape is a joke. Sure, the physical tape will last 1000 years, but who cares if they stop making compatible hardware in 10 years?

In the year 3024, someone's going to unearth a pristine set of tapes from 2024 and then find out they need a working reader manufactured no later than 2034 to read it. Good luck.

Back in reality, a hard drive from 1994 can still easily be hooked up to modern computers with at most a cheap commodity adapter, whereas a tape from 1994 might as well be in Linear A.

 

[Rock Eater]

Yeah, tape is a joke. Sure, the physical tape will last 1000 years, but who cares if they stop making compatible hardware in 10 years?

In the year 3024, someone's going to unearth a pristine set of tapes from 2024 and then find out they need a working reader manufactured no later than 2034 to read it. Good luck.

Back in reality, a hard drive from 1994 can still easily be hooked up to modern computers with at most a cheap commodity adapter, whereas a tape from 1994 might as well be in Linear A.

while that may be true I really rather know my data is safe, even if its a arm and a leg for someone else to look though my archive.

 

[Vecr]

while that may be true I really rather know my data is safe, even if its a arm and a leg for someone else to look though my archive.

One of the major reasons they don't claim reliability (other than greed, etc.) is that decades-old hardware fails. Especially hardware for reading data that dense, and has so many parts to go wrong. I've had machines eat tapes before.

 

[888Flux]

You might want to check out this thread over on the Self Sufficiency board:

https://kiwifarms.st/threads/offline-long-term-digital-archival.195002/

 

[reptile baht spaniard rid]

The secret is as many copies as you can afford.

The most valuable stuff is often the smallest - it should simply be on every single device you own, and many more backup devices. And a copy in the cloud somewhere. Shutterfly lets you upload a shitton of photos if you buy a print every once in awhile.

For larger media multiple HDD copies is the ways to go, geographically diverse. For “media backups” you don’t need to worry as much as most are replaceable but share the load with a few local friends, and agree to store some extra data at the same time.

Tape is good but the cost is way higher than just maintaining spinning rust in various locations unless you have petabytes or required backup rotations.