the long-term viability of media is critically important for scientists, engineers, lawyers and many other professionals -- for artists and historians in some cases too

BTW - Google is about to give us a free 5 G of cloud storage -- you can upload everything and let them pick thru it for evil purposes, just like they did with their drive by wifi collection efforts

Due to our enormous storage needs we're testing a companies holographic/laser storage unit. The unit is good for a 100 years and data is accessed in 200 milliseconds or less. The big advantage here is you can write data on a thousand angles in one space.

If you're relying on cloud, you're still relying on rotating media. Its just in someone else computer.

Yes, but the owness is on them to ensure the data is not lost or corrupted. So the liability in the case of data loss is on them.

To those who feel cloud data storage is safe: may I point out the recent hacks into banks and credit card companies where pertinent data was stolen. If they hack into there, they can certainly hack into the cloud.

-Z

why not just use what the NSA uses?

Likewise. I have 3 bankers boxes of VHS tapes (aviation, historical, natgeo type stuff) I thought I would like to attempt to re-do. Too much time, effort & money to transcribe, especially the time involved.

Cheers
JB

Z,
You are right. Just pointing out that you're not getting away from (using) media.

True.

May I also point out that solid state also has a limited life -- it can only do so many reads and writes during its lifetime before memory sectors become unreadable/unwritable. BTW: CD's DVD's, and BD's also have a limited shelf life, before the silicon backing starts to peel, and the data becomes corrupt. All digital media has a limited life expectancy. Most modern storage devices have longer life expectancies, but nonetheless, as far as I know, no digital media lasts forever. At least not yet... And even if a CD were to last forever, in 4-5 generations of removable media, there won't be devices out there which can read that data -- backwards compatibility can only go so far. Same applies to your USB stick -- how are you going to read data off of that media when USB ports have been replaced by the next best interface port?

I know that a few years ago, the brains at IBM were working on a new type of non-magnetic media - one that uses divots on plastic for the 1's and 0's of the digital work. These divots were placed on plastic on the nano-level (ie: very small dots). A series of prongs would sweep over the dots and interpret the data, kind of like a music box does. The benefit: it was not subject to magnetic corruption, and the data could theoretically be kept forever. the drawback -- not ideal for storing in hot environments. Not sure how much they will pursue that technology, as solid state storage seems to be the direction most storage vendors (EMC, IBM, NetApp, Hitachi) are migrating towards. (Still very expensive media...)

Incidentally, I am a SAN/Storage architect for my company, and have been involved in enterprise-level storage for close to 20 years. In my opinion, the best way to protect data is Raid technology, combined with data duplication in an offsite facility. But while this methodology works for a corporation, it can get too costly for the average consumer. Hence the cloud, which typically will offer at least Raid technology, and possibly data duplication.

-Z-man.

Z,
You have been at this a long time. I was with IBM when re-writable optical media was new. (Early 80's). We have replaced all of the SSD due to the failure mode you mentioned. We use only HHD's (our own drives) on the factory floor.

I'm an IT professional and the first thing they taught me at Uni was that it's only a matter of time before you'll loose data.

As Z mentioned the best option right now is raid arrays with secure off site storage. Anyone can duplicate this setup by have multiple redundant hard drives at home with a backup copy stored off site either in a bank safety deposit box or a relatives homes.
Either way you have the problem of security.

Cloud is all the buzz right now but it does have it limitations.

BUT ask yourself... If you lost 100% of your stored data right now, what would happen? Nothing? ;)

I respect your credentials Z. I will offer up that RAID is not a sure thing and I was a victim to a massive RAID failure while supporting the Marines in Korea. I was the late shift on a 24hr watch and had to transfer application servers to the lone functional server HW after 2 drives died simultaneously on a RAID 5 configuration at 3AM...just before the brief.... I became a smoker again for the next 12 hours...LOL.

The Cloud offers massively replicated data with failsafes. Short of a global catastrophe your data will be there...even if you are not. ;)

We all already do. We just don't know it.

They're no doubt backing up all your data and info. already.

So I'm supposed to buy a hard drive and just give those away when people want their photos ?

Spot on.

Funny, as our tech allows ever bigger faster storage it also becomes evermore volatile.

A really big solar flare could wipe out all the data magnetically stored on earth. This includes HDs, tapes, etc...not sure about SSD and DVDs, but imagine the mess it could cause. Pretty much a temporary halt of modern civilization.

I read a few years ago that the Library of Congress is recording 2nd or 3rd backup recording voice and music to vinyl, because all you need is a record needle to play it. Makes sense, I have a wind up gramaphone and a bunch of early 1900's music that I can play.

Try Blu Ray. Much quicker, much larger.
Can't wait till the price of blanks drops down lower though. They're still a bit pricey.

Have been using the cloud for years now but also backing things up on several hard drives and stashing them away. If I need them to back up lost data they only have to work once and thats usually not a problem.

Like others, anything really secure will never go on a cloud where it can be hacked...

I think Verbatim will make a big comeback...

That would be awesome!