How to avoid obsolete (data) storage hell (ZDNet/UK)

(I still remember how amazed I was when I saw my first 44MB Syquest disk)

How to avoid obsolete storage hell

Don't get suckered into using a backup medium that your next computer won't be able to read.

Rafe Needleman April 13, 2005

In 1987, I was a dBase II programmer for a structural engineering firm. The computers of the day weren't terribly reliable (some things don't change), so I backed up my work regularly onto 10MB Iomega Bernoulli disks. I also thought I might want to check out my work at a future date, so I filed away the disks.

Recently, I uncovered these disks. They're rather quaint now -- massive 8in.-by-10in. plastic cartridges holding flexible disks inside them -- but they were the height of reliable backup at the time. Today, they're utterly and completely obsolete, best used as serving trays for drinks. Along with the Bernoulli cartridges, I uncovered more old Iomega disks: a few 44MB Bernoulli Box II disks (mini-versions of the original -- only some 5in. across), a solitary 1GB Jaz drive cartridge and about two dozen Zip disks of the 100MB and 250MB variety.

Am I a sucker for media that's doomed to become outdated, or is it just that I fall for the siren call of Iomega? In truth, all media eventually becomes obsolete (want to buy my old Joni Mitchell LPs?); it just seems that some wither and die faster than others. Which brings us to the question we should all be asking ourselves: what's going to happen to the CD-ROMs and the DVD-Rs we're using to archive our precious data? Are they doomed to becoming useless, except as coasters, too?

Putting aside the issue of whether DVDs will be readable at all in 20 years (the metal oxides in DVDs can rust), there's the simple progression of technology and storage at work. At one point floppy disks were ubiquitous, but hardly anybody uses them anymore, because you can hardly fit anything on them -- a 1.4MB floppy disk can't hold a single uncompressed digital photograph from today's advanced cameras. Even an 8.5GB double-layer DVD is doomed to the same fate.

(more at link above)

Thanks. Seems like hard drives is the way to go.

which is a lot easier than CD's, but I also heard on the Castellini on Computers radio show that hard drives are unreliable too, and they told a story of a gal who'd backed up all her world onto an external hard drive --- twice, i.e., she used TWO external hard drives as backup, and they both died on her within a week or two of each other.

So I guess I should do a secondary backup to CD's too, but I haven't yet, I've been doing it this way since about a year ago now, I think.

/astral

I had to go to ebay and buy a Jaz drive to read it. Luckily it was only 20$. Unluckily it uses SCSI which my current computer doesn't have. I'm going to have to get an old obsolete computer of mine running again in order to get the data off.

Don't remember how many times my Zip drive screwed me. Loved the idea, but the execution sucked. I'll never buy anything from Iomega again. Would like to know the best way to preserve data disks for the long-term.

Gyre

there's always the option of storing things in the Briefcase section. Only 30 MB, but better than nothing, esp as you don't need to carry anything around with you, all you need is internet access

I have old backup tapes with confidential data in several different formats. Since I no longer have working drives for these formats I have to find some other way to destroy the data on these tapes or just lock them away forever.

If they have one of those Giant Magnets (to pick up cars), bring your tapes there in a box, then have them use that magnet on them.

The get a sledge hammer and go to town on them. Then I'd have them throw the rest into a industrial shredder.

That should do it.:evilgrin: