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Comment by PythonicAlpha | Hacker News Reader

Yes, but again we have the same trouble (as before the optical media era): Either you make no backups at all or when you have a rock-solid backup-solution, you must buy very expensive hardware.

Of course you can do backups into the cloud ... or on hard drives -- that is today the only solution that is still not so costly for normal users. But in my opinion, a sub-optimal solution.

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About 10 years ago, all of my family photos fit on one 8gig drive. When I retired this drive after years of use, I copied all of the pictures on this drive to a dozen CD-R's. I put both on a shelf in my bedroom closet.

10 years on, 9 of 12 CD-Rs are unreadable or have substantial data loss. The hard disk is 14 years old. Every checksum is still correct.

Hard disks were the best backup medium for the average consumer back then. They still are. Now they are super easy because they are USB.

Put a 2.5" 1TB external USB in your safe deposit box. Your kids will love whats on it 20 years from now.

I agree, that hdds are still better, than the average optical media. But the reason is that the optical media are just crap today. When the CD was invented, they told us, they will hold life-long. Ok, CD-Rs/DVD-Rs are slightly different, but still it would be possible for them to be good after 40 years with still a reasonable price (I have no statistics, but I would say, that the TYs come rather near to this ideal).

I did not want to go into a lengthy discussion about hdds and backup (and still don't want to). Just one thing: While some last really decades without trouble and are really great, it can well be that you have bought one that will just fail one day and than you are bust. While the price-tag of hdds is low today, it is not so low, that you would put four or five of them on your shelf just for backup (I might do in the future, but not yet now). For a good backup-strategy you should not rely on just one media (that can be destroyed by one single drop!).

What also bothers me is, that currently only two or three real producers of hdds are left.

Except that I'll bet you didn't use Taiyo Yuden or equivalent quality discs. I have, first one batch of Kodak Golds 15 years ago, then Taiyo Yuden, and haven't yet suffered a data loss yet.

Although now that my data has gotten large enough I'm using LTO tape backup.

Good quality discs, in tyvek sleeves, with no writing on the discs, stored in temperature and humidity and light controled environment: it's not trivial for people to achieve.

Which company made the discs?

ADDED: I see you aren't who started this sub-sub-thread.

But I'd add that except for the environmental control, you don't have to go to great extremes, CD-Rs are physically rather robust. But you did/do have to do your research, to discover that you need to buy Taiyo Yuden or MAM-A media, and get discs from a reputable source (there was a lot of TY counterfeiting some time ago), and store them properly.

Will USB still be accessible in twenty years time?

There's a niche in archival products for lots of redundant data (like PAR or PAR2) combined with backup duplication across geographical diversity.

There's a German (I think) company offering very robust storage for 10 of your most treasured photos. It's expensive, but they claim to be offering many years archival (100 years? 50 years? (This was on a BBC Radio Four programme but sadly I have no idea how to get that programme or the name of the company.)

How is a backup into the cloud or hard drive is a sub-optimal solution.

HDD last only a few years up to 10-15y. SSD last even less years. DVDs last 10-20y. Cloud... it depends. Old school tapes last 20+ years.

While I am in doubt with the numbers, I agree with the trend. Writable DVDs last sometimes even less years, since they are produced so cheap.

There where the MO-Drives, that really lasted many decades, but they also vanished.

Best solution currently are the old-school tapes, since they are created as real backup-solution. Trouble is, that when you want to buy a current drive (with enough data density) you will have to invest a stack of money just for the drive. Also the equipment and tapes are seldom sold for consumers. I looked up some figures ... and one cartridge currently costs half the sum of the same hdd space (consumer drives). So even the cartridges are rather costly for consumers.

It's my understanding that writable DVD technology is so marginal that even the best media, MAM-A Gold, isn't worth trusting your data to, although by now we ought to have long term info on how good or bad it is in practice.

Hmmm, and it looks like MAM-A Silver and Gold CD-Rs are what we're going to have to switch to. Previously they weren't judged as really needed given the quality of Taiyo Yuden CD-Rs, but if the latter aren't available....

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