OT: are usb flash drives suitable archival media?

John Summerfield debian at herakles.homelinux.org
Mon Nov 19 22:58:04 UTC 2007


Dave Stevens wrote:
> your thought? tests? reviews?


I don't like USB drives for backup (not quite the same, I know) because 
their contents are too easily lost by sloppy handling, system errors or 
just plain confusion.

I lost the contents of one a while ago, the partition table got lost. 
I've no idea how, but it happened I had another, identical, so I copied 
the first sector, very carefully indeed, with dd from the good one to 
the crook one.

Another question you need to ask is "How long do I want this?" If you 
say, "20 years," then think back to popular backup media from 20 years ago.

VHS tape?
DAT?
DDC

I have some open-reel 9-track tapes from 30 years ago. I don't know 
whether they're readable, nor that anyone has a drive capable of reading 
them.

In the early 80s, I had two NEC APCs, one had a 10 Mbyte hard disk. They 
used 8" floppies. Seen an 8" floppy disk drive recently? Before that, I 
had assorted 5.25" drives with capacity from 90k to 800k. I don't think 
I have a drive for 5.25" disks of any capacity, though I have some disks,

I also have some orphaned MO disks.

Clay tablets are the great survivors.



-- 

Cheers
John

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