Re: Best long-term storage medium for backups, images, etc?

M.I.5¾ wrote:
"Philip Herlihy" <thiswillbounceback@xxxxxxx> wrote in message news:fssu3t$da5$1$830fa17d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Jim Backus wrote:
On Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:31:49 UTC, Philip Herlihy <thiswillbounceback@xxxxxxx> wrote:

What is the best storage medium for longevity, cost and convenience? Tape? If so, what sort?

M-O disks seem to be the best. Normal M-O are good for about 50 years without any very special storage requirements.

Unfortunately large capacity M-O are expensive and are not normally aimed at the consumer market.

Thanks! Hadn't really registered the existence of these: there's a useful summary here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magneto-optical_drive

Bit concerned that the technology is on the wane (at least in terms of its market) and the capacities (at least of the consumer version) is a bit small - Archival grade DVDs seem a better bet. It'll be interesting to see how Blu-Ray develops.


Sony are still actively marketing the Hi-MD version of their MiniDisc format. Although primarily an audio medium, the current version of the portable Hi-MD players will also record standard computer files onto the Hi-MD discs. If you can live with a disc that has a 1Gb capacity, this could provide a solution as the MO media has a long archival life.



Thanks - useful to know. However, I've been prompted to ask by my mounting collection of large image files (often 12 Gb and more), and DVDs are likely to be a better bet, I think - especially archival grade.

Phil
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