The future of data storage?

[wdfifteen]

I understand that more computers are going to start shipping without DVD drives because optical storage media is supposedly going the way of the floppy disk. Macs latest OS doesn't even support an external floppy drive. I'm afraid in a few years it won't support an external DVD.
I have terabytes of data on DVDs and I'm afraid it won't be accessible in 5 years. What will the ultimate storage solution be?

[azasadny]

Solid state drives, think USB thumb drives. I have a 32GB thumb drive, it's unbelievable that so much data can fit on such a small, fast device! Hard drives have ball bearings!

[stomachmonkey]

I gave up backing up to DVD years ago.

Had a couple gig of stuff that needed backing up, bought a sleeve of DVD's, started doing the math and it was days of work.

Hard drives were/are dirt cheap so now I buy one or two big drives a year, load em up and stick them on a shelf.

[widebody911]

Hard drives were/are dirt cheap so now I buy one or two big drives a year, load em up and stick them on a shelf.

What bothers me is the long-term viability of media.

[nostatic]

Originally Posted by widebody911

What bothers me is the long-term viability of media.

In the end, does it really matter? Print the photos you really want. As for the rest...I'm almost of the mind that if I haven't accessed it the last couple years, it likely can go away. I have a stack of smaller HDs that I've been thinking I should consolidate, go through the files, etc. Then I think about the scope of it and instead think, "screw it."

[azasadny]

I can't think of any affordable form of media that won't decay over time. Even the old yellowing photos printed on photo paper are decaying while stored in shoeboxes across the world. I just took a bunch of old photos out of the musty decaying photo albums and scanned them into digital format and I was shocked as to the amount of decay they have gone through in only 30-40 years. Who knows how long data will remain on magnetic media?

[RonDent]

Magnetic media isn't going anywhere any time soon. SSD's still have a few issues to overccome. Cost is only one of them.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

Hard drives were/are dirt cheap so now I buy one or two big drives a year, load em up and stick them on a shelf.

I'm worried about the mechanicals of the hard drive functioning when I need it ten years from now, plus all magnetic media seems fragile to me.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by widebody911

Hard drives were/are dirt cheap so now I buy one or two big drives a year, load em up and stick them on a shelf.

What bothers me is the long-term viability of media.

Hard drives, the platters specifically, are the most durable option that the average consumer can afford.

[Zeke]

hah! I have templates and other things on floppies. Can't get at it. I see that future coming around again.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

I'm worried about the mechanicals of the hard drive functioning when I need it ten years from now, plus all magnetic media seems fragile to me.

I would not really worry about that. Hard drives are sealed air tight. Barring a fire or some other catastrophic event I would not lose sleep over it.

Your bigger issue will really be do you have a PC 10 years from now that will have a compatible interface for the HD.

[motion]

Couldn't you just buy a legacy computer on Ebay for a few bucks to access your data down the road? There are millions of them out there.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

There will be (and already is to some extent) a market for old computers simply because they can access certain things and support devices that have been EoL'd and are no longer supported.

Most digital content is junk anyway, if you really think about it. I have some things that matter (portfolio/marketing stuff, scans of all my important documents, photos of all property of any value, etc.) but those exist on my computer's HDD, on a couple of DVDs (one is off-site, one is in a fire safe) and online (Carbonite). Some stuff I have the paper copies of too. I think I'm okay.

[JavaBrewer]

My critical media (documents and photos) are online and on local storage. Online storage gives you the 'forever' capability - perhaps to a fault. I don't bother with manual backups anymore. If my local data was lost I can easily restore it with an internet connection. Consumer stuff (music/video) is already available via streaming and as connectivity (access and speed) matures it will be the 'new' storage format. IMO.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by motion

Couldn't you just buy a legacy computer on Ebay for a few bucks to access your data down the road? There are millions of them out there.

I ended up doing just that last year in order to access some floppy disks - got one of those little Macs that looks like a toilet seat (iBook?). Just bought a new Macbook Pro and I'm not getting rid of the old one. All that obsolete software may come in handy some day.

[Z-man]

Cloud is the future of storage. Apple's doing it, and you've got services like Dropbox.

Convenient, but kinda scary too: I don't want all my info out there where it is far easier to hack into.

-Z

[jcunning]

Maybe I'm weird, but I absolutely hate the idea of losing my data. Plus, I hate the idea of putting my data out there on the internet for a hacker to get access.

So, I do backups the old fashion way. I first do daily/weekly backups of my hard drive to a second hard drive in the computer. This protects from primary hard drive crashes.

To prevent total data loss from fire, once a year I burn the entire backup folder onto double-sided blu-ray discs and put them into the storage unit.

If the house burns down I only lose a year's worth of photo's, music, video's.

The only chance of data theft is someone breaking into my storage unit and grabbing the discs. Then they have to figure out the encryption code and unpack the files onto a hard drive... Good luck on that!

[HardDrive]

Slow and rather low capacity, but boy do they last.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Originally Posted by Z-man

Cloud is the future of storage. Apple's doing it, and you've got services like Dropbox.

Convenient, but kinda scary too: I don't want all my info out there where it is far easier to hack into.

-Z

Do you really think it's easier for someone to hack an Apple (or Google, or Microsoft, or whoever) data repository than a home network? Just curious and I'm not an IT guy, but I'd tend to think that well-funded data repositories with everything to lose reputation-wise take data security very, very seriously and employ lots of cutting-edge technologies and probably have lots of the "best and brightest" constantly shoring it up. Yes, it represents a central target, but I'd think if there's anything in the world that would be well-defended, those sorts of storage places would be it.

I'm more worried about some knucklehead hacking into my WiFi, but (1) I lock it down and keep it secure and (2) anywhere my WiFi signal reaches can also be reached by at least five different caliber weapons from the upstairs of my house, so I'm not too worried.

I think the BIGGEST threat to data security (for me personally at least) is copying crap onto flash drives (or smart phones) and then forgetting about it. I almost had that happen once. Never again. Be VERY careful with those things and use encryption (i.e. BitLocker or similar) if at all possible! Get a phone that can be tracked/wiped/bricked if it EVER goes missing also - and make sure you put at least halfway decent password protection apps on anything sensitive.

[JavaBrewer]

Originally Posted by Z-man

Cloud is the future of storage. Apple's doing it, and you've got services like Dropbox.

Convenient, but kinda scary too: I don't want all my info out there where it is far easier to hack into.

-Z

Online storage is very safe and is rapidly becoming more accessible for the general public. As PoP mentioned keeping data secure is their top priority, well other than attracting paying customers, their business model relies on keeping stuff locked down. I have been to several Cloud conferences and at the last event it was mentioned that if enterprise is not spending at least $100K/year on security they would better off (safer) keeping data in the Cloud. If it makes people feel better they can always encrypt sensitive docs/archives before uploading to the cloud.