Alan Browne wrote:
> BobF@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
>> On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 11:27:01 -0400, Alan Browne
>> <alan.browne@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>>> Again: For long life buy the so-called "gold" Verbatim disks (CD and
>>> DVD). In benign conditions the data will last well over 100 years.
>>>
>>> I just ordered an IOmega 1 TB drive (actually 2 500 GB drives in one
>>> unit) that can be configured RAID 0 or 1, (I'll use 0) and a couple
>>> other modes. It has Firewire 800 which is very fast.
>>>
>>> I'm beginning to believe that hot backing up is really the only way
>>> to go. Managing backup volumes is tedious. It will be interesting
>>> to see how well Apple Time Machine works.
>>
>> Another thing I an considering is saving as RAR archives, with massive
>> Par2 loss
>> protection... I've ran some tests on this stuff, and once set up it
>> works like
>> magic! You can make a 4G archive of photos, save it as perhaps 100
>> .RAR pieces,
>> with a few dozen Par2 files set to 100%, save everything on 2 discs,
>> and you can
>> be missing half the files on each disk and still get everything back!
>>
>> It's worth learning this stuff!
>
> I agree. That is something I've read about, but I haven't tried yet.
> I'm not convinced, however, that that would allow recovery of data from
> an old DVD (20 yr old) as too much would be damaged in too many places.
>
> I'll be ordering some 'gold' DVD's shortly for archival purposes and I
> might double down my bets with RAR/PAR2. My 120 scans run 500 MB each,
> so I only get 9 images per DVD. On the other hand I only get one or two
> really great images per roll of 120...
>
How long will DVD be a standard format? So far, the data storage method
that has survived the longest without becoming obsolete in the hard disc
(excluding paper, of course). What if, 20 years ago, you had selected 8"
or 5.25" floppies as your standard storage method; or 15 years ago, you
had picked 3.5" diskettes? Or, for that matter, most any tape format.
How would you read these today? Don't expect to be able to come back to
_any_ medium 20 years later and have hardware that will read it. One
very im****tant key to backup is to routinely transfer all backups to
modern devices before your selected medium vanishes into the great bit
bucket in the sky.
Allen
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