"William Graham" <weg9@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:gsmdndtG_u1E8UranZ2dnUVZ_jadnZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> "Dudley Hanks" <hanks.dudley@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
> news:pjFBj.100230$C61.96094@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>
>> <bobF@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>> news:l55et3t5puh0cmht0l315rjjbnrn0g5jen@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>> On Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:01:06 -0400, Alan Browne
>>> <alan.browne@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>
>>>>William Graham wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Date: 2070
>>>>> Place: The attic of grandpa's old place, just before we put it on
>>>>> the
>>>>> market.
>>>>> Found in a box: A bunch of CD's with Grandpa's old pictures on
>>>>> them.......
>>>>> Found in a box: A bunch of grandpa's old slides.
>>>>>
>>>>> Which are more likely to be viewed and enjoyed by the grandkids?
Will
>>>>> the
>>>>> computers of 2070 even be able to accept the CD's of 2008?
>>>>
>>>>Accept the CD's? Certainly. Why not? The survival of standards,
>>>>devices and the s/w to read them is growing, not fading. I can still
>>>>read late 80's 9 track tapes that I have stored. (But the data has
>>>>migrated else wise and more convenient to get at ...)
>>>>
>>>>However, what is more likely is that the CD backups were
>>>>made with ordinary organic based CD or DVD's. These will go 5 - 10
>>>>years in benign (20'C or less, not humid) conditions. An uninsulated
>>>>attic will spend many months per year above 35'C or so... these disks
>>>>will be dead within a few years. The slides will be faded, perhaps,
but
>>>>quite viewable. If you store the CD's in a very cool, dry place, they
>>>>might go 10 years or so.
>>>>
>>>>To really archive reliably for decades you need to get the "metal"
based
>>>>CD's and DVD's. They retail for a higher price, of course about $2 /
>>>>disk in spindles.
>>>>
>>>>OTOH, the practice of migrating data on external drives has certainly
>>>>taken off. I just ordered a 1 TB drive; double the capacity of my
>>>>40% or so used 500 GB drive. We'll see how well "Time Machine" works.
>>>>The life of data on a hard disk is probably not much better than 5 -
10
>>>>years. Gotta move it around to preserve it.
>>>>
>>>>For fire coverage, however, disk, CD/DVD or attic does not work well
>>>>(unless the CD/DVD's are stored off site).
>>>>
>>>>Cheers,
>>>>Alan
>>>
>>> FYI....
>>>
>>> I recently decided to replace my CD backups, starting with the oldest
>>> CD...
>>> aprox. 1998... since they are at the 10 year mark...
>>>
>>> I had about 100 to do, and it took me a few months of leisurely
>>> after-work
>>> activity... I moved them to a HD and then burned them onto both CDs
and
>>> DVD's.
>>>
>>> Of the 100 discs, I had 2 that had read errors. And only a few of the
>>> files were
>>> bad, not the whole disk. Pretty good results I'd say... because of my
>>> multiple
>>> backup philosophy, I didn't lose anything.
>>>
>>> But the big problem?
>>>
>>> Format!!
>>>
>>> Lots of the discs were Direct CD, now called drag-and-drop, a form of
>>> packet
>>> writing... Most disks were closed, but a few were open, but that
didn't
>>> seem to
>>> matter... these old format discs took 3.5 hours each to copy the
files!
>>> I know I
>>> timed a few!!
>>>
>>> These disks had from a few hundred to a few thousand files, depending
on
>>> type,
>>> and you could watch the names slowly go by! 10,000 seconds IS a long
>>> time!
>>>
>>> If you have packet discs I suggest you get started replacing them!
>>>
>>> As for other storage problems, I have 3 bad HD's that were in my sock
>>> drawer...
>>> it seems that putting a HD aside doesn't do any good... someone
recently
>>> told me
>>> they should be spun every month or so because the mech gets frozen...
>>> like your
>>> old bike from the 60s in the back of the garage!
>>>
>>> Did you ever open a HD to see what makes it tick? Those little parts
>>> look real
>>> fragile!
>>>
>>> Now I'm relying on massive DVD redundancy... every file on 3 or more
>>> discs...
>>>
>> Definitely good advice.
>>
>> I tend to split my efforts between maintaining an external USB HD
backup,
>> and dual layer DVD's. I have a phobia about simply using multiple
disks
>> written from the same drive. If the drive is slightly off in it's
sector
>> writing, they can be useless in other drives.
>>
>>
>> But, at the first signal that dual layered disks are going the way of
the
>> dodo, I'll be using an alternate secondary storage method.
>>
>> Take Care,
>> Dudley
>>
>>
> You know, after reading all the above, I am more convinced than ever
that
> it's wise to have the slides.......As a back up, if nothing else.....:^)
>
I agree, completely, William.
My wife and I make sure that, in addition to the hard-drive and DVD
copies,
we print prints of the most im****tant pics. Slides would be even better.
Now, if I only had a digital to film converter...
Take Care,
Dudley
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