Offline Long-Term Digital Archival - Archiving data for when the Internet cannot be depended on.

  • 🐕 I am attempting to get the site runnning as fast as possible. If you are experiencing slow page load times, please report it.
Casshern said:
And back to the actual topic of archiving, how many backups does everyone make?
Click to expand...
A second harddrive in my pc has files backed up to it, an external drive has a backup, and really important stuff are burned onto DVDs if they can fit. (I still have a spindle of blanks from years back, so I am trying to burn through them all.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Casshern
Casshern said:
Continuing on from the clay tablet meme, there is an alchemical method to improving clay deposits that seems rather interesting. Although this video cut out the original recipe‘s goat hair, which I assume worked as both parts filler and support structure, and could be replaced with twine or other similar fibrous materials.

And back to the actual topic of archiving, how many backups does everyone make? Strictly 3-2-1, or do you go even further? Do you have media in different “levels” of backups? Personally most of my media that isn’t crucial just gets a simple mirror, if that. Especially if I own it on some form of physical media. What I really focus on is the irreplaceable things like Grandma’s recipes or family memories and survivalist info like first aid videos, which I have accessible across multiple backups and devices, even a mix of low and high tech.
Click to expand...
I keep 3-4 copies of everything I'm serious about preserving
 
  • Feels
  • Semper Fidelis
Reactions: HahaYes and Casshern
Sobake said:
A friend of mine made torrents out of my MATI archive, including 2018-2023 missing only the lost life is strange episodes. Let me know if I missed anything.
He only seeds it over I2P for whatever reason and I can't reliably seed anything, sadly this is the best I can do.
Attached is the torrents in case you want!
Click to expand...
Are these 720p? And are there 1080p versions?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jotch
SCV said:
Are these 720p? And are there 1080p versions?
Click to expand...
Yes, all 720p for storage space reasons. I hear downloading just one of the volumes can take a week. Think of I2P as an 80k modem.
With 1080p video I found that not only was the space used almost twice as big and download speeds twice as long, but it reallt wasn't necessary for myself at least.
I've not seen any practical purpose for 1080p for standard Internet video.
I listed my sources in the included info.txt, visit those sites for the originals, many of ehich are 1080.
 
Sobake said:
Yes, all 720p for storage space reasons. I hear downloading just one of the volumes can take a week. Think of I2P as an 80k modem.
With 1080p video I found that not only was the space used almost twice as big and download speeds twice as long, but it reallt wasn't necessary for myself at least.
I've not seen any practical purpose for 1080p for standard Internet video.
I listed my sources in the included info.txt, visit those sites for the originals, many of ehich are 1080.
Click to expand...
I'm aware of I2P speeds but (to me at least) I see it as a permanent public repository so I'd want the higher quality. I already said this but because there's essentially zero risk I see no reason to share everything I can indefinitely. Also I've seen hundreds (yes, hundreds!) of kbps on more popular torrents. If we could just break the chicken / egg problem and get people to move over things could be so much better. I might still just download and seed all of those anyway though.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jotch
SCV said:
I'm aware of I2P speeds but (to me at least) I see it as a permanent public repository so I'd want the higher quality. I already said this but because there's essentially zero risk I see no reason to share everything I can indefinitely. Also I've seen hundreds (yes, hundreds!) of kbps on more popular torrents. If we could just break the chicken / egg problem and get people to move over things could be so much better. I might still just download and seed all of those anyway though.
Click to expand...
Really it just boils down to my not wanted to store 400gb when it could be 200gb.
 
Sobake said:
Really it just boils down to my not wanted to store 400gb when it could be 200gb.
Click to expand...
I was looking at the info.txt (very much appreciate the best-of list) and the sources, when you downloaded them did you simply pull the 720p version from youtube/odysee ?

Also the real reason for this post:
i2p fast.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jotch
SCV said:
I was looking at the info.txt (very much appreciate the best-of list) and the sources, when you downloaded them did you simply pull the 720p version from youtube/odysee ?

Also the real reason for this post:
View attachment 6185819
Click to expand...
Now that is some high speed downloading! Glad you appreciate the info. Early on I downloaded 1080p, and later downsampled to 720p after size ballooned up, after that I downloaded at 720p thanks to yt-dlp's sorting feature. Some Videos, such as those in the 2020 volume were only available at 480p on bitchute, so it is really a 720p cap.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SCV
Blu-ray as a medium may be winding down? At least for home recording. Sony has the only plant for the 100gb and 128gb discs, and apparently it's shutting down?
It's been talked about here and elsewhere, but the cost/gb isn't great for these optical media, but it's still one of the better long-term options I know of. Going to be real rough if the world gets a bunch of EMP dumps.
 
  • Informative
  • Like
Reactions: 412-L and Jotch
 
  • Like
Reactions: snowdunes
This is only slightly on topic, but what kind of experience do you guys have for making CD labels for the CD/tray? I like to collect music CDs and I think Im just gonna start pirating music to burn onto CDs but I would also like to make them look good by maybe printing off the album covers to put in the trays/attach onto the CD.
 
hideandgoseekchampion said:
This is only slightly on topic, but what kind of experience do you guys have for making CD labels for the CD/tray? I like to collect music CDs and I think Im just gonna start pirating music to burn onto CDs but I would also like to make them look good by maybe printing off the album covers to put in the trays/attach onto the CD.
Click to expand...
Printable CDs (and DVDs and Blurays) were a thing for a while, but I don't even know how many printers still support it, much less how much media is out there that support it as well.

Otherwise there used to be a world of templates and art sites for this sort of thing. It's a fun way to start some graphic design work as well! I never did cds unless they were directly printable, the few times I tried labels/stickers, it seemed like it could unbalance the cd somehow, or maybe just the glue just would shorten the cd life.
 
  • Informative
  • Like
Reactions: 412-L, Jotch, Dixieland Buckaroo and 1 other person
Is using tape (atleast for a home user) a giant meme, or is there something to it? I'm looking on Amazon right now and they're selling new tapes for $2/TB. The read/write rates seem pretty fast as well.
The only issue I see is that I can't really find any tape readers, theres either tape readers for like $3000 or I just see a bunch of cheap shit for floppy disks.
 
hideandgoseekchampion said:
Is using tape (atleast for a home user) a giant meme, or is there something to it? I'm looking on Amazon right now and they're selling new tapes for $2/TB. The read/write rates seem pretty fast as well.
The only issue I see is that I can't really find any tape readers, theres either tape readers for like $3000 or I just see a bunch of cheap shit for floppy disks.
Click to expand...
Good for large chunks of data that are backed up/restored in one hit, shithouse for small regular access, (high capacity, High latency) which is why they are popular in the corpo world for backups, so the main way to get the drives is ex-corp devices, hence the highish cost of the drive for LTO stuff, and why most use SAS connections to receive data instead of more consumer level connection types
 
Dixieland Buckaroo said:
Blu-ray as a medium may be winding down? At least for home recording. Sony has the only plant for the 100gb and 128gb discs, and apparently it's shutting down?
It's been talked about here and elsewhere, but the cost/gb isn't great for these optical media, but it's still one of the better long-term options I know of. Going to be real rough if the world gets a bunch of EMP dumps.
Click to expand...
Hopefully it just means that SONY is bailing and that other companies, like Verbatim, keep going. Either way, it'll only be us plebs who will suffer from that. Big tech and big government have been buying up M-Discs like crazy for years, and I'm sure will continue to use them.

Facebook was doing a trial run with creating a 1 petabyte rack of cartridges - all containing BluRay Discs - controlled by a robot. Their second test was going to be creating a 5 petabyte rack, but I don't have a link for that:

Also, this guy talks about government agencies (like CIA) were buying up M-Disc DVDs like crazy for long term cold storage:

Which leads me into a question that I've already asked in the Data Hoarders thread (but this thread seems like a more appropriate place to ask it). What optical discs are archival quality and good for long-term cold storage? I first looked into DVD M-Discs, but they don't exist anymore - at least for the civilian market. M-Disc BluRays are no longer M-Discs. There have been a few threads on reddit showing the differences, and that since 2021/2022, Verbatim has been taking their M+A+B+L hard-coat BD-XLs and branding them as 'M-Disc" (and over-charging, of course). And listings for Verbatim products (even those sold by Amazon), list multiple products as "100-Year" or "Archival Quality" - even their non-AZO or vinyl coated discs.

This site...

... lists BD-Rs as having a lower lifespan than CD-Rs, which I thought odd as the blurays are made with inorganic dyes which are supposed to be even more stable than the AZO dyes (which are good, but still organic). It also mentions commerically made DVDs and BluRays as only having a 10-20 year life span (which doesn't sound right). And it states that the disc with the longest archival length would be CD-Rs manufactured using the phthalocyanine dye and the gold metal layer (with the silver layer discs as second place). Manufacturers don't usually list the dye compositions on the packaging (and even if they did, it's hard to trust after the M-Disc example I gave earlier), so what makes of CD, DVD, and BD are best for long-term archival? (Assuming that it's a relatively small amount of data needing to be archived (less than 100GB).

Edit: Thank you in advance for your expertise on this topic.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Dixieland Buckaroo and Jotch
Boolean Bitch said:
Hopefully it just means that SONY is bailing and that other companies, like Verbatim, keep going.
Click to expand...
Sony is the only (last?) manufacturers for the quad layer BD-Rs (and maybe even the triple layer).

My impression is that most modern BD-R's are inorganic. I think it was mentioned ITT, but M-Disc was bought by some Chinese company, and I wouldn't even trust it today. Supposedly it made a difference over organic bases, but not inorganic ones.

The BD-R's I've used have had better life than the CD-Rs I used back in the day, but I won't claim anecdotal evidence as fact. I don't even know what the point of a CD-R today would be, unless you're doing bit for bit copies of old media.
 
  • Informative
  • Like
Reactions: Boolean Bitch and Jotch
Dixieland Buckaroo said:
M-Disc was bought by some Chinese company, and I wouldn't even trust it today.
Click to expand...
Many USB burner sellers will seriously include complementary MDiscs in the box. They must be really hard to sell.
Also I would love to get into tape drives. I would love a box of a few 10 TB tape drives. Does anyone know any good consumer grade writers?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back