Best Means Of Backing Up/Archiving Original Digital Recordings?

  • Thread starter Thread starter stevieb
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stevieb

Just another guy, really.
Someone on the "Best Hard Drive" keeps all his HD recordings on the original hard drives.

We prefer to burn a DVD copy and archive it.

There are other means, of course- tape, saving file to a server, sending file to an off-side service's server.

What's the best, or at least, what are pros and cons of each? For instance, Keeping the original HD is easy, but bulky and expensive. DVD's may not be the forever thing we have been lead to believe. Etc.

(Submitted as a genesis for discussion- I already know some of the pros and cons, of course- but probably not all.)
 
Anything. ...so long as you have two copies. (but don't $kimp on the CD/DVD if you go that route)
 
Hard drives tend to not spin up if you leave them idle for a few years. DVDs tend to degrade, burnable DVDs doubly so. By contrast, odds are good that a DLT tape is forever.

No matter what you use, remember that you should keep no fewer than two copies of everything, and you should at minimum reread them all periodically (and watch for bad block errors) to make sure no data has been lost.
 
Wouldn't DLT tape be subject to the same degradition analog tapes suffer from with age?
 
here's an IT guy's take on it. Check your backups every so often ... once a year or two years. Check the media is OK.
You may want to burn the ISO of the discs (CD or DVD) to a new disc after a few years. This might preserve the recordings longer, by using a new medium

at work, we use CD-RW and now DVD-RW for short cycle backups ... monthly & quarterly and non-erasable discs for permanent backups
 
dgatwood said:
Hard drives tend to not spin up if you leave them idle for a few years. DVDs tend to degrade, burnable DVDs doubly so. By contrast, odds are good that a DLT tape is forever.

No matter what you use, remember that you should keep no fewer than two copies of everything, and you should at minimum reread them all periodically (and watch for bad block errors) to make sure no data has been lost.
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I would go DVD. I dont agree with the degrade statement. They have a lifespan of 50-100 years. I would save all on DVD. As new technology arives , then transfer digitaly to that. You'll be fine
 
jmorris said:
I would go DVD. I dont agree with the degrade statement. They have a lifespan of 50-100 years
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I WANT to believe that, but I recall from a few years ago, news was that CD's (very similar technology, when you get down to it) were proven to not be anywhere NEAR as durable as originally represented. Seems that they could deteriorate to the point of being un-playable (un-readable) in as little as 10 years. Now, I have vinyl that is three or more times that age, and CD's that age or even a bit older. And we expect to be in business for way longer than ten years- archives are a small but well-promoted part of our business plan (and prefferential archival treatment is promised to clients who pay a maintenance fee.) It would be disaterous if we could not deliver on that promise.
 
stevieb said:
I WANT to believe that, but I recall from a few years ago, news was that CD's (very similar technology, when you get down to it) were proven to not be anywhere NEAR as durable as originally represented. Seems that they could deteriorate to the point of being un-playable (un-readable) in as little as 10 years. Now, I have vinyl that is three or more times that age, and CD's that age or even a bit older. And we expect to be in business for way longer than ten years- archives are a small but well-promoted part of our business plan (and prefferential archival treatment is promised to clients who pay a maintenance fee.) It would be disaterous if we could not deliver on that promise.
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Try two years, not ten:

http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/6450-CD-Recordable-discs-unreadable-in-less-than-two-years.html

And DVDs:

http://newsterrorist.wordpress.com/2005/04/30/cd-r-dvd-r-lifespan-may-be-less-than-2-years/
 
stevieb said:
I WANT to believe that, but I recall from a few years ago, news was that CD's (very similar technology, when you get down to it) were proven to not be anywhere NEAR as durable as originally represented. Seems that they could deteriorate to the point of being un-playable (un-readable) in as little as 10 years. Now, I have vinyl that is three or more times that age, and CD's that age or even a bit older. And we expect to be in business for way longer than ten years- archives are a small but well-promoted part of our business plan (and prefferential archival treatment is promised to clients who pay a maintenance fee.) It would be disaterous if we could not deliver on that promise.
Click to expand...

I had some cheap Verbatim CDs that magically quit being readable after a year or two. I buy Sony now as I have had no problems.

Vinyl is a bad example for lifespan, because (and I only pay for music on vinyl btw) it looses quality every time it is played. Maybe not a noticeable amount each time, but over the years it gets worse. But then vinyl was never really for archiving, so its a mute point. I have high hopes for BluRay when the price comes down a bit.
 
Only mentioned vinyl as a comparison to commercial CD's, not suggesting it as an archival storage medium.

Again, what about mag. tape- won't it shread and such like older analog mag. tape?
 
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