Best data archival media?

I was wondering if you gurus could share some impressions regarding
the best media type for data archival. In particular which media type
would you trust for archival of important data you wish to take
off-line 10 or 15 years. Would you suggest tape like DLT or some
optical disk or MO?

I'm asking for impressions because, at this time, no one has 15 or 20
years experience with, say DLT IV. While capacity, price, speed are
important to decision making, I though I might start out to ask for
just general reputations and strategies.

Thanks

On 17 Nov 2003 18:27:02 -0800, (idunno)
wrote:

I was wondering if you gurus could share some impressions regarding
the best media type for data archival. In particular which media type
would you trust for archival of important data you wish to take
off-line 10 or 15 years. Would you suggest tape like DLT or some
optical disk or MO?

I'm asking for impressions because, at this time, no one has 15 or 20
years experience with, say DLT IV. While capacity, price, speed are
important to decision making, I though I might start out to ask for
just general reputations and strategies.

Thanks
You're not thinking this through.

No matter what media choice you select, then chances are good that the
device will be obsolete long before that.

Just choose whatever works today for you, and rotate the media to the
current technology every few years.

This is good advice. I can't think of a single media that existed 15
years ago that you would have a snowballs chance in hell of getting
data off of.

Another option is to just spin it all on disk. Something I've
considered is just getting a large, slow, cheap array and putting all
archive data on it. Then, in 2 or 3 years when drives are 10tb each
and a single array can hold 243PB I will just migrate to that one
since it will probably cost the same as the original (adjusted for
inflation of course).

~F

On Mon, 17 Nov 2003 23:40:44 -0600, David A.Lethe
wrote:

On 17 Nov 2003 18:27:02 -0800, (idunno)
wrote:

I was wondering if you gurus could share some impressions regarding
the best media type for data archival. In particular which media type
would you trust for archival of important data you wish to take
off-line 10 or 15 years. Would you suggest tape like DLT or some
optical disk or MO?

I'm asking for impressions because, at this time, no one has 15 or 20
years experience with, say DLT IV. While capacity, price, speed are
important to decision making, I though I might start out to ask for
just general reputations and strategies.

Thanks
You're not thinking this through.

No matter what media choice you select, then chances are good that the
device will be obsolete long before that.

Just choose whatever works today for you, and rotate the media to the
current technology every few years.

On Mon, 17 Nov 2003 23:40:44 -0600, David A.Lethe
wrote:

On 17 Nov 2003 18:27:02 -0800, (idunno)
wrote:

I was wondering if you gurus could share some impressions regarding
the best media type for data archival. In particular which media
type
would you trust for archival of important data you wish to take
off-line 10 or 15 years. Would you suggest tape like DLT or some
optical disk or MO?

I'm asking for impressions because, at this time, no one has 15 or
20
years experience with, say DLT IV. While capacity, price, speed are
important to decision making, I though I might start out to ask for
just general reputations and strategies.

Thanks
You're not thinking this through.

No matter what media choice you select, then chances are good that
the
device will be obsolete long before that.

Just choose whatever works today for you, and rotate the media to the
current technology every few years.


Well, that's very sound advice. And I have been operating that way.
I was wondering two things. First which media type ppl had the most
confidence in as far as shelf life? Secondly, if confidence in a
media was high enough to extend the amount of time before rotation.

10 or 15 years is admittedly a very long time. While it perhaps an
overly optimistic time frame, my thinking was that it might not be
totally impractical to start some discussion. If, for example, there
was someone that has been using MO for almost a 10 years and not only
do their original media work as good as new, but current MO seems to
have the same or better quality, I might have some confidence in
getting into MO with the idea of leaving data on disks in storage,
instead of 2 or three years maybe 5 or 7 years. I find there is often
a great discrepancy between the theoretical performance values and
real-world experience. Sometimes gut feelings and anecdotal
experiences can be very helpful.

Unfortunately I think you are right, that the only way to ensure that
data is retained is to actively maintain it. Realistically there
probably isn't any way out.

Unfortunately I think you are right, that the only way to ensure that
data is retained is to actively maintain it. Realistically there
probably isn't any way out.

If it ain't spinning, it's dead.

Lynn

On Thu, 20 Nov 2003 16:04:31 -0600, "Lynn McGuire"
wrote:

Unfortunately I think you are right, that the only way to ensure that
data is retained is to actively maintain it. Realistically there
probably isn't any way out.

If it ain't spinning, it's dead.

Lynn


Huh ???

I believe the poster means:

"if it's not on spinning disk then consider it lost. If you get it
back have a party to celebrate."

Just my interpretation of course...

~F

On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 00:06:39 GMT, idunno
wrote:

On Thu, 20 Nov 2003 16:04:31 -0600, "Lynn McGuire"
wrote:

Unfortunately I think you are right, that the only way to ensure that
data is retained is to actively maintain it. Realistically there
probably isn't any way out.

If it ain't spinning, it's dead.

Lynn


Huh ???