Archiving Data Permanently

[Mike McCarty]

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, 

Yes, there are. And in fact, I myself have some tapes which are 20+
years old.

> 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?

Apparently, you haven't read all of what I said. I pointed out that
getting equipment to read old tapes might be difficult. The IRS has
some such problems at the moment, I believe.

[snip]

> 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.

Each of us is, of course, entitled to an opinion on each subject.

There are several aspects to this ongoing discussion. One of these
aspects was expense. I have pointed out on a couple of
occasions that eventually tape will be cheaper than CDs.

I also pointed out that the jury is still out on CDs' data retention.
For all I know, it is better. Also, for all I know, it is worse.

I pointed out that (good quality) tape has a proven record of data
retention in the 20+ year range.

You dispute this last claim, while admitting that it may be true.
You dispute it based on data retention of non-digital data. I made
no claims in regards to non-digital data retention.

You don't address the first two issues at all.

What do you propose as an alternative, since you disparage tape?

I always think it is better to have a proposal rather than a denial.

Mike
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