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From time to time the fanboys here get onto data backup and it always
leads to how long various media lasts.

Well today i dragged the file box out of stoarge and decided to
consolidate all my backup CD,s.

These CDs stretch all the way back to 1997.

I had only one which wouldnt read out of all these and that was a kodak
Gold. It may well even be that this had been written with UDF which
could account for it.

The barnds. Mitsubishi (silvers and coloured), BASF (warehouse
specials), Transonic (warehouse), Samsung, Verbatum, Imation, Melody,
In general a mixed bag of cheap disks.

The worst performance was by BASF the silver coating peeling very easy.

Well now all the data i wanted to keep is backed up three times onto 3
DVD's. Even if one DVD fails I still have two others.




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Collector»NZ wrote:
> From time to time the fanboys here get onto data backup and it always
> leads to how long various media lasts.
>
> Well today i dragged the file box out of stoarge and decided to
> consolidate all my backup CD,s.
>
> These CDs stretch all the way back to 1997.
>
> I had only one which wouldnt read out of all these and that was a kodak
> Gold. It may well even be that this had been written with UDF which
> could account for it.
>
> The barnds. Mitsubishi (silvers and coloured), BASF (warehouse
> specials), Transonic (warehouse), Samsung, Verbatum, Imation, Melody,
> In general a mixed bag of cheap disks.
>
> The worst performance was by BASF the silver coating peeling very easy.
>
> Well now all the data i wanted to keep is backed up three times onto 3
> DVD's. Even if one DVD fails I still have two others.

So the same make of dvd+r? surely different makes maybe a better idea?
otherwise you have the same batch and same make stored in similar
conditions, suggesting a similar failure point.

A bit of a worry when cd's were supposed to last 25 years plus.

I actually have some old pictures that are circa Victorian era and
detiorating. Of course they are 100 years old....and still
readable....but what of another 100 years?



The question is how dare I scan and back them up? If I did to a DVD+R
would my grand children be able to look at my great-great grand parents
photos? I suspect not which is a great shame.

I wonder if there is a market for a 100 year guaranteed backup medium, I
suspect so.

regards

Thing

In article <>,
Collector»NZ <> wrote:

>Well now all the data i wanted to keep is backed up three times onto 3
>DVD's. Even if one DVD fails I still have two others.

I have an informal generational system. I keep the cases for up to about
half a dozen obsolete backups, going back 2-3 years. Then when I do a
new one, I throw away the oldest disc and reuse that case.

My system did let me down once--that was a scary time. But I don't
expect it'll happen again...

In article <>,
thing <> wrote:

>I actually have some old pictures that are circa Victorian era and
>detiorating. Of course they are 100 years old....and still
>readable....but what of another 100 years?
>
>
>
>The question is how dare I scan and back them up? If I did to a DVD+R
>would my grand children be able to look at my great-great grand parents
>photos? I suspect not which is a great shame.

Digitize them onto CD/DVD as soon as you can. Make at least 2-3 copies
to begin with, stored in different places, complete with MD5 hashes (or
if you don't trust MD5 any more, use something newer like RIPE-MD160).
Every year or two, take one out and copy it onto another disc, and
recompute the hashes just to make sure nothing's changed.