Archiving Data Permanently

[Peter Arremann]

On Thursday 18 August 2005 22:13, Claude Jones wrote:
> On Thu August 18 2005 3:18 pm, Mike McCarty wrote:
> > As I mentioned before, tape is very reliable. It has been shown to have
> > 20+ year retention. One gets "wear and tear" only when the tape actually
> > moves. For data archival purposes, this is effectively never.
>
> Since I've spent over thirty years in the media sector, first sound
> engineering, and now television, I can't let this claim pass. You've
> repeated it as gospel. I'm sure there are some studies that would make your
> point, but, in real world conditions, I would never trust critical backups
> to tape. Even supposing a tape's data was intact after 20 years, what would
> be the state of the technology? What  would you retrieve your data with?
> I've dealt with every format of tape there is. Even if it's stored
> properly, vertically, not horizontal on the spool, in temperature and
> climate controlled conditions, there is a wide disparity in tape longevity.
> BetaSP tapes that cost us $60+ when purchased new, will vary widely in
> their playability even after ten years. Older 3/4" stuff is deteriorating
> rapidly in our archive, and we're in a rush to transfer mode lately, to get
> the material off them and on to newer media. The machines that will play
> this stuff are also getting harder and harder to maintain, and find parts
> for. I've encountered many horror stories about computer tape backups as
> well. Meticulously done, perfectly stored, and tape drives kept up to spec,
> may succeed in the 20-year life you speak of, but those conditions are
> almost never met in the real world. If you have the staff to maintain the
> stuff, the equipment to be maintained, the climate controlled storage
> environment, along with many other factors, you might get by with tape
> backup - I personally would only recommend tape as a secondary repository.
Agreed. I can't recommend tapes for anything longer than a few weeks if you 
really need your data. We have all kinds of tape formats where I work and 
none have ever been reliable for more than a few months.
 
The only viable option you have for long term is MO...

Peter.