Filesystem for a Time Capsule

No, not Apple Time Machine, but an actual time capsule.
I have been asked to put together an external USB hard drive; format it
and put a bunch of pictures, videos - you name it on there.
It, along with other trinkets will be sealed in a container and buried.
At first I was thinking ext4 since it is non proprietary. Or ext2 for
the same reason and the fact it is non-journaling.
NTFS? Maybe but I don't know what form M$ will be in circa 2110.
Fat16/32 - out of the question since some files will be bigger than 4GB.
What about fat64/exFAT? Is there a utility to format a *hard drive* to
fat64?
I'm not even considering Apple's HFS+.

Since most of us (myself included) won't be around when this thing is
opened this is more of a thought exercise than actual task.

You could make a volume of each file system, with duplicate data, in an
extended partition. Best to bury two duplicate drives, maybe of
different brands. Maybe they should be hermetically sealed? Include some
DVD's in case the hard drives lock up? How about some SSD's?
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On Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:51:14 -0700, Ed Light wrote:

You could make a volume of each file system, with duplicate data, in an
extended partition. Best to bury two duplicate drives, maybe of
different brands. Maybe they should be hermetically sealed? Include some
DVD's in case the hard drives lock up? How about some SSD's?

I would rather stick to one partition and one filesystem. I figure over
the course of time a single filesystem would be easier to read. But your
idea does have merit.
The entire time capsule will be hermetically sealed. I was going to get
an aluminum enclosure and carve the type of filesystem into it.
DVDs are out of the question. Even the best quality DVDs only last ten
of twenty years. Those cynanine chemicals break down pretty easily, even
on archive quality media.
Maybe some USB drives.

Maybe some USB drives.

How much data is there? You could use SSD's.
--
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http://antiwar.com

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Ah, this one is easy. Since your hdd has about a 30 year
(both hardware and interface availability) survival time,
use anything currently supported by a Linux kernel.

If you want pictures, documents, etc. to survive, use
a high-quality paper and high-quality one sided b/w laser
printing. This can reasonably be expected to survive
several hundred years when kept dry.

Bottom line: Wrong approach. BTW, a SLC (!) FLASH drive
gives you 10-20 years data retention. Better are MOD
( 50 years, but drives may be a problem) and archival
tape. I do't think there is any digital storage medium
around at this time, that is suitable for a time capsule.

Arno

Justin wrote:
No, not Apple Time Machine, but an actual time capsule.
I have been asked to put together an external USB hard drive; format it
and put a bunch of pictures, videos - you name it on there.
It, along with other trinkets will be sealed in a container and buried.
At first I was thinking ext4 since it is non proprietary. Or ext2 for
the same reason and the fact it is non-journaling.
NTFS? Maybe but I don't know what form M$ will be in circa 2110.
Fat16/32 - out of the question since some files will be bigger than 4GB.
What about fat64/exFAT? Is there a utility to format a *hard drive* to
fat64?
I'm not even considering Apple's HFS+.

Since most of us (myself included) won't be around when this thing is
opened this is more of a thought exercise than actual task.

--
Arno Wagner, Dr. sc. techn., Dipl. Inform., CISSP -- Email:
GnuPG: ID: 1E25338F FP: 0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25 338F
----
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Ed Light wrote:

Maybe some USB drives.

How much data is there? You could use SSD's.

SSDs are absolutely terrible for long-term storage.
The cells _will_ loose their charge. With SLCs you
should get something like 20 years, but it already is
a stretch. MLCs are more in the 5 year data retention
range. I had one quality USB stick by PQI that gave
be random reads after a year. After formatting it
worked fine again, but I strongly advise to not
use SSD/FLASH for long-term storage.

Arno
--
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GnuPG: ID: 1E25338F FP: 0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25 338F
----
Cuddly UI's are the manifestation of wishful thinking. -- Dylan Evans

Arno wrote:
Ah, this one is easy. Since your hdd has about a 30 year
(both hardware and interface availability) survival time,
use anything currently supported by a Linux kernel.

If you want pictures, documents, etc. to survive, use
a high-quality paper and high-quality one sided b/w laser
printing. This can reasonably be expected to survive
several hundred years when kept dry.

Bottom line: Wrong approach. BTW, a SLC (!) FLASH drive
gives you 10-20 years data retention. Better are MOD
( 50 years, but drives may be a problem) and archival
tape. I do't think there is any digital storage medium
around at this time, that is suitable for a time capsule.

Not a substitute for printed paper, but how about one of the oldest
recordable optical mediums, Plasmon WORM disks?

wrote:
Arno wrote:
Ah, this one is easy. Since your hdd has about a 30 year
(both hardware and interface availability) survival time,
use anything currently supported by a Linux kernel.

If you want pictures, documents, etc. to survive, use
a high-quality paper and high-quality one sided b/w laser
printing. This can reasonably be expected to survive
several hundred years when kept dry.

Bottom line: Wrong approach. BTW, a SLC (!) FLASH drive
gives you 10-20 years data retention. Better are MOD
( 50 years, but drives may be a problem) and archival
tape. I do't think there is any digital storage medium
around at this time, that is suitable for a time capsule.

Not a substitute for printed paper, but how about one of the oldest
recordable optical mediums, Plasmon WORM disks?

Same problem as MOD: Drive availability is unlikely. Keep
in mind that the drives only keep so long (10 years even
in storage typically) so they only stay available if they
are manufactured.

Even if it has to be digital data, paper is the best bet today.
What is done in practive is to keep the data on disk or take and
to copy it every few years to newr technology.

Arno

--
Arno Wagner, Dr. sc. techn., Dipl. Inform., CISSP -- Email:
GnuPG: ID: 1E25338F FP: 0C30 5782 9D93 F785 E79C 0296 797F 6B50 1E25 338F
----
Cuddly UI's are the manifestation of wishful thinking. -- Dylan Evans

I have been asked to put together an external USB hard drive; format it
and put a bunch of pictures, videos - you name it on there.
It, along with other trinkets will be sealed in a container and buried.

FAT, NTFS & ext2 are possibly the safest bets.

Since most of us (myself included) won't be around when this thing is
opened this is more of a thought exercise than actual task.

To extend your experiment, use more existing digital media like
DVD-recordable, USB flash drive, ....

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Justin wrote:

No, not Apple Time Machine, but an actual time capsule.
I have been asked to put together an external USB hard drive; format
it and put a bunch of pictures, videos - you name it on there.
It, along with other trinkets will be sealed in a container and buried.

I'd go FAT32 as long as the videos arent too big to fit on that.

Even if they are, I'd split those that are.

At first I was thinking ext4 since it is non proprietary. Or
ext2 for the same reason and the fact it is non-journaling.

Too likely that they will be long gone by the time someone wasnt to read the stick.

NTFS? Maybe but I don't know what form M$ will be in circa 2110.

Fat16/32 - out of the question since some files will be bigger than 4GB.

Just split the ones that are too big. It will be obvious that
you have done that if the file names are chosen properly.

What about fat64/exFAT?

No guarantee that it will survive for as long as you need.

Is there a utility to format a *hard drive* to fat64?
I'm not even considering Apple's HFS+.

Since most of us (myself included) won't be around when this thing
is opened this is more of a thought exercise than actual task.