OT: Reliable Medium For Long Term Backup And Archiving

[Abby Brown]

Hi,

I've been using DVD and CDs for long term backup and archiving.
However, recent uploading of a hundred or so CDs and DVDs had
several that failed. These were only about six years old. (I
typically spot test a newly burned disk.) More than one burner
and brand of blanks was involved. The burners and blanks are
garden variety.

What are more reliable alternatives?

Thanks,
Gary

 

[JoeSpareBedroom]

Hi,

I've been using DVD and CDs for long term backup and archiving. However,
recent uploading of a hundred or so CDs and DVDs had several that failed.
These were only about six years old. (I typically spot test a newly
burned disk.) More than one burner and brand of blanks was involved. The
burners and blanks are garden variety.

What are more reliable alternatives?

Thanks,
Gary

External hard disk. If losing the data would be disastrous, then two
external hard disks. Move one to a bank safe deposit box weekly or at
whatever interval makes sense to you. Swap with the other next week.
Remember that you're trying to protect not only against computer failure,
but also against the building burning down.

 

[thanatoid]

External hard disk. If losing the data would be disastrous,
then two external hard disks. Move one to a bank safe
deposit box weekly or at whatever interval makes sense to
you. Swap with the other next week. Remember that you're
trying to protect not only against computer failure, but
also against the building burning down.

You forgot to say "try not to drop the drives when handling
them".

I can NOT believe how many people have fallen for the external
HD rip off (a $20 drive in a $3 box selling for $100) the ONLY
reason for which is the fact that NO money is to be made on
CD/DVD media and burners any more, and tape backups have always
been too expensive for personal use.

(Once HD's got bigger than 8.4 GB, anyway - I still have a
working Colorado tape drive, but it only stores about 250MB per
cartridge, makes a most annoying sound, and takes forever - but
OTOH I have tapes from the late 90's which are still just
fine...)

"Since hard drives are mechanical devices, they will all
eventually fail. While some may not fail prematurely, many hard
drives simply fail because of worn out parts. Many hard drive
manufacturers include a Mean Time Between Failures figure on
product packaging or in promotional literature. These are
calculated by constantly running samples of the drive for a
short amount of time, analyzing the resultant wear and tear upon
the physical components of the drive, and extrapolating to
provide a reasonable estimate of its lifespan. Since this fails
to account for phenomena such as the aforementioned head crash,
external trauma (dropping or collision), power surges, and so
forth, the Mean Time Between Failures number is not generally
regarded as an accurate estimate of a drive's lifespan."
(Wikipedia)

Aside from the fact that ANYTHING can be destroyed if you really
want to do it (although try bending a CD-R and see just how easy
it is to make it crack in two***), top-quality brand name CD-
and DVD-R's burned with good software at slow speeds can not
mechanically fail and are quite long-lasting. They do
deteriorate over time, but if you make 2 copies and copy one of
them every 3 or so years, the data will probably outlive you.

Tape has also proven to be very dependable, but the cost of
high-capacity tape drives is prohibitive to most individuals -
however they are routinely used for backups of network data in
corporate environments.

***(OTOH, take a razor blade and make a few cuts in the printed
side of a CD-R and see what happens...)

 

[Russ SBITS.Biz [SBS-MVP]]

how does a hard drive fail sitting on a shelf?

--
Russell Grover - SBITS.Biz [SBS-MVP]
Microsoft Gold Certified Partner
Microsoft Certified Small Business Specialist
World Wide 24hr SBS Remote Support - http://www.SBITS.Biz
Microsoft Online Services - http://www.microsoft-online-services.com

 

[Stan McIntosh]

Ha. You don't live in California.

how does a hard drive fail sitting on a shelf?

--
Russell Grover - SBITS.Biz [SBS-MVP]
Microsoft Gold Certified Partner
Microsoft Certified Small Business Specialist
World Wide 24hr SBS Remote Support - http://www.SBITS.Biz
Microsoft Online Services - http://www.microsoft-online-services.com

You forgot to say "try not to drop the drives when handling
them".

I can NOT believe how many people have fallen for the external
HD rip off (a $20 drive in a $3 box selling for $100) the ONLY
reason for which is the fact that NO money is to be made on
CD/DVD media and burners any more, and tape backups have always
been too expensive for personal use.

(Once HD's got bigger than 8.4 GB, anyway - I still have a
working Colorado tape drive, but it only stores about 250MB per
cartridge, makes a most annoying sound, and takes forever - but
OTOH I have tapes from the late 90's which are still just
fine...)

"Since hard drives are mechanical devices, they will all
eventually fail. While some may not fail prematurely, many hard
drives simply fail because of worn out parts. Many hard drive
manufacturers include a Mean Time Between Failures figure on
product packaging or in promotional literature. These are
calculated by constantly running samples of the drive for a
short amount of time, analyzing the resultant wear and tear upon
the physical components of the drive, and extrapolating to
provide a reasonable estimate of its lifespan. Since this fails
to account for phenomena such as the aforementioned head crash,
external trauma (dropping or collision), power surges, and so
forth, the Mean Time Between Failures number is not generally
regarded as an accurate estimate of a drive's lifespan."
(Wikipedia)

Aside from the fact that ANYTHING can be destroyed if you really
want to do it (although try bending a CD-R and see just how easy
it is to make it crack in two***), top-quality brand name CD-
and DVD-R's burned with good software at slow speeds can not
mechanically fail and are quite long-lasting. They do
deteriorate over time, but if you make 2 copies and copy one of
them every 3 or so years, the data will probably outlive you.

Tape has also proven to be very dependable, but the cost of
high-capacity tape drives is prohibitive to most individuals -
however they are routinely used for backups of network data in
corporate environments.

***(OTOH, take a razor blade and make a few cuts in the printed
side of a CD-R and see what happens...)

 

[Jim]

Hi,

I've been using DVD and CDs for long term backup and archiving.
However, recent uploading of a hundred or so CDs and DVDs had
several that failed. These were only about six years old. (I
typically spot test a newly burned disk.) More than one burner
and brand of blanks was involved. The burners and blanks are
garden variety.

What are more reliable alternatives?

Thanks,
Gary

External hard drive with imaging software ; Acronis True Image is
popular .

 

[Anna]

Hi,

I've been using DVD and CDs for long term backup and archiving. However,
recent uploading of a hundred or so CDs and DVDs had several that failed.
These were only about six years old. (I typically spot test a newly
burned disk.) More than one burner and brand of blanks was involved. The
burners and blanks are garden variety.

What are more reliable alternatives?

Thanks,
Gary

Gary:
What you've experienced is not unusual at all in terms of optical disks
becoming defective after a period of time. If you must use this type of
media to archive important and/or "mission-critical" material it's usually a
wise practice (as a general proposition) to copy the disk to a fresh one
every two years or so, perhaps even yearly. Under no circumstances should
you trust *any* USB-connected flash drive to store archived material. But I
suppose you're aware of that admonition. The failure rate of those devices
over the long haul have been nothing less than appalling in our experience.

In my view the recommendation you rec'd from a number of responders to your
query is most likely the best route to follow, i.e., use a USB external HDD
to store the material. Our experience with using that device for storage of
archived material has (by & large) been quite positive over the years. The
failure rate has been extremely low assuming the device is not stolen or
physically damaged through some outside event. And for added security from
time-to-time you can use a disk-cloning program to copy the contents of the
stored archived data to another HDD that's installed in another external
enclosure or (assuming you're working with a desktop PC) temporally
installing that HDD internally in you machine as a secondary HDD, cloning
the contents from the external device, and then removing the
internally-connected HDD from the machine and storing it as a bare drive at
some different location from your PC. As I'm sure you're aware the cost of
HDDs & external enclosures these days is quite reasonable so give that
option some consideration.
Anna

 

[HeyBub]

how does a hard drive fail sitting on a shelf?

* Bit rot
* Stray neutrinos in the Solar Wind
* Malevolent foreign deity
* Self immolation
* Prank

 

[HeyBub]

Hi,

I've been using DVD and CDs for long term backup and archiving.
However, recent uploading of a hundred or so CDs and DVDs had
several that failed. These were only about six years old. (I
typically spot test a newly burned disk.) More than one burner
and brand of blanks was involved. The burners and blanks are
garden variety.

What are more reliable alternatives?

Commercially produced CDs have an indefinite lifetime - the ones and zeros
are physically pressed into the material.

Do-it-yourself CDs rot.

In addition to the other good suggestions, there are companies that can
backup your data online.

A simple backup scheme is to make a backup zip file and mail it as an
attachment to your own Gmail account. Google allows some 8 gigabytes of mail
storage, so this works for smaller data retentions. Of course there is no
limit on the number of Gmail accounts you can have...

Another advantage of online backups is availability from a remote location.
If your backups are in a fireproof safe or bank vault, they may not be
immediately available.

 

[Russ SBITS.Biz [SBS-MVP]]

And you base this on what empirical data?

--
Russell Grover - SBITS.Biz [SBS-MVP]
Microsoft Gold Certified Partner
Microsoft Certified Small Business Specialist
World Wide 24hr SBS Remote Support - http://www.SBITS.Biz
Microsoft Online Services - http://www.microsoft-online-services.com

 

[Russ SBITS.Biz [SBS-MVP]]

I was thinking Aliens myself LOL

--
Russell Grover - SBITS.Biz [SBS-MVP]
Microsoft Gold Certified Partner
Microsoft Certified Small Business Specialist
World Wide 24hr SBS Remote Support - http://www.SBITS.Biz
Microsoft Online Services - http://www.microsoft-online-services.com

 

[thanatoid]

how does a hard drive fail sitting on a shelf?

It doesn't, unless your cat or ferret pushes it OFF the shelf,
or there is an earthquake. Those things DO happen, you know.

Or, when you get around to plugging it in after whatever length
of time, assuming it doesn't fall out of your old shaking-with-
octogenarianism-hand, you may find it is frozen and will not do
anything.

OTOH, even dead drives provide nice shiny discs to make mobiles
with, though, and I have ALWAYS thought they would make great
bikinis.

<SNIP>

 

[thanatoid]

In addition to the other good suggestions, there are
companies that can backup your data online.

A simple backup scheme is to make a backup zip file and
mail it as an attachment to your own Gmail account. Google
allows some 8 gigabytes of mail storage, so this works for
smaller data retentions. Of course there is no limit on the
number of Gmail accounts you can have...

And I understand those "free online backup" companies and Google
have invented a 100% indestructible HD which they have patented
and told no one about?

Another advantage of online backups is availability from a
remote location. If your backups are in a fireproof safe or
bank vault, they may not be immediately available.

Let alone to hackers.

 

[thanatoid]

Gary:
What you've experienced is not unusual at all in terms of
optical disks becoming defective after a period of time. If
you must use this type of media to archive important and/or
"mission-critical" material it's usually a wise practice
(as a general proposition) to copy the disk to a fresh one
every two years or so, perhaps even yearly. Under no
circumstances should you trust *any* USB-connected flash
drive to store archived material. But I suppose you're
aware of that admonition. The failure rate of those devices
over the long haul have been nothing less than appalling in
our experience.

In my view the recommendation you rec'd from a number of
responders to your query is most likely the best route to
follow, i.e., use a USB external HDD to store the material.
Our experience with using that device for storage of
archived material has (by & large) been quite positive over
the years. The failure rate has been extremely low assuming
the device is not stolen or physically damaged through some
outside event. And for added security from time-to-time you
can use a disk-cloning program to copy the contents of the
stored archived data to another HDD that's installed in
another external enclosure or (assuming you're working with
a desktop PC) temporally installing that HDD internally in
you machine as a secondary HDD, cloning the contents from
the external device, and then removing the
internally-connected HDD from the machine and storing it as
a bare drive at some different location from your PC. As
I'm sure you're aware the cost of HDDs & external
enclosures these days is quite reasonable so give that
option some consideration. Anna

<not snipped for amalytical purposes)

And which external HD manufacturer do you regularly lie, excuse
me, do PR work for, Anna?

 

[Russ SBITS.Biz [SBS-MVP]]

My guess is the MTBF on a tape sitting on a shelf in a hot office or your
car is lower
than a Hard drive doing the same.

As far as falling off a shelf
and hard Drives can take like 300G's which is more than a 200ft fall
A human can't even stand more than 12-17Gs without serious damage.
So unless you have really tall Shelves
It's pretty safe.

When I worked for Intel 15 years ago some techs would take old Hard drives
out
and THROW them against a cement wall to see if they would fail.
They had to do it many times before one would fail.
(Some never did.)
Then Security found them out.. So No more fun stuff
(No I did not nark on them)

I'd put a bet that a HD on the Shelf would outlast a Tape, Any day.
However I'm sure both will last long enough.

Tapes are old tech anyway everyone is using HD's anyway..
And if you have your heads misaligned on the other tape drive.. OUCH
Zero Recover of data.

Russ

--
Russell Grover - SBITS.Biz [SBS-MVP]
Microsoft Gold Certified Partner
Microsoft Certified Small Business Specialist
World Wide 24hr SBS Remote Support - http://www.SBITS.Biz
Microsoft Online Services - http://www.microsoft-online-services.com

 

[thanatoid]

My guess is the MTBF on a tape sitting on a shelf in a hot
office or your car is lower
than a Hard drive doing the same.

Who leaves their backups in a car on a hot day? I wouldn't even
keep audio cassettes or CD's in mine!

The USER is always the bottom line.

As far as falling off a shelf
and hard Drives can take like 300G's which is more than a
200ft fall A human can't even stand more than 12-17Gs
without serious damage. So unless you have really tall
Shelves It's pretty safe.
When I worked for Intel 15 years ago some techs would take
old Hard drives out
and THROW them against a cement wall to see if they would
fail. They had to do it many times before one would fail.
(Some never did.)

Yes, 15 years ago companies still made an effort to put some
quality into computer HW...

Now you're lucky to find a drive that's not Chinese or (old
East) German...

Then Security found them out.. So No more fun stuff
(No I did not nark on them)

I'd put a bet that a HD on the Shelf would outlast a Tape,
Any day. However I'm sure both will last long enough.
Yup.

Tapes are old tech anyway everyone is using HD's anyway..

My point was that that is a mistake.

And if you have your heads misaligned on the other tape
drive.. OUCH Zero Recover of data.

Well, that's a given... Remember the floppy nightmares?

 

[Russ SBITS.Biz [SBS-MVP]]

thanatoid
You mention Googles drives not being 100% Reliable?
If you believe this you must store everything on Tape like we did 1960?
(Reel to Reel?)
If so apparently you haven't heard about RAID technology?
and Clustering? it's been out for a while since Tape Drives.
And Very Reliable.

Of course! not you use a hard drive!!!

The only reason we used tape in the old days because it was cheaper than
Hard drives
Now that HD's are cheaper than Tape, we use hard drives, it's really that
simple.

Even the big boys use HD and have been for a while,
and Recovering 1 file from a tape. UGH! Exhausting.

You can choose to pay Big bucks for tape if you want.
I just hope you don't forget it in your car on a hot day
or the drive heads become miss aligned which they do after time.
and you want to actually RECOVER something.
(But yes arguably the data will be there, you just can't retrieve it.)

Oh and hackers? LOL
I bet someone can open your door to your house/office
easier than un encrypting a 256bit encrypted file
Of course if you are an Idiot and have a password of password it's your own
fault.

Tape is dead, let It RIP.
Russ

--
Russell Grover - SBITS.Biz [SBS-MVP]
Microsoft Gold Certified Partner
Microsoft Certified Small Business Specialist
World Wide 24hr SBS Remote Support - http://www.SBITS.Biz
Microsoft Online Services - http://www.microsoft-online-services.com

 

[Russ SBITS.Biz [SBS-MVP]]

Actually they predict CD's at 100 years
But then that's long enough

Russ

--
Russell Grover - SBITS.Biz [SBS-MVP]
Microsoft Gold Certified Partner
Microsoft Certified Small Business Specialist
World Wide 24hr SBS Remote Support - http://www.SBITS.Biz
Microsoft Online Services - http://www.microsoft-online-services.com

 

[Russ SBITS.Biz [SBS-MVP]]

And if you have your heads misaligned on the other tape

Well, that's a given... Remember the floppy nightmares?

Yup, thanks for proving my point.
TAPE = BAD Technology

Russ

 

[thanatoid]

Yup, thanks for proving my point.
TAPE = BAD Technology

Russ

Russ = BAD brain