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NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 04 Oct 2024 04:35:38 +0000
Subject: Re: Alternative to Optical Storage????
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From: "186282@ud0s4.net" <186283@ud0s4.net>
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Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2024 00:35:37 -0400
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On 10/3/24 3:13 PM, Nux Vomica wrote:
> On Thu, 3 Oct 2024 01:47:00 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
> 
>>
>>     It's a SERIOUS PROBLEM. We make SO much data now,
>>     SUCH volume, and at least SOME of it IS important
>>     for both legal and historical reasons - yet there
>>     are NO really good archival media.
>>
> 
> Very well stated.  This was, of course, the real subject
> of my original post.
> 
> I would guess that human beings (a.k.a. Homo sapiens) are
> not very far sighted.  We witness this in societal reactions
> to COVID-19 and global warming.  It seems that human
> civilization is not capable at all of being proactive.
> 
>>
>>     Optical disks - esp M-Disks - can LAST ... but they
>>     are LOW-DENSITY by today's defs by a BIG margin.
>>     It's also not clear if you'd be able to FIND a
>>     DVD reader device 25 years from now. Even most
>>     current PCs/laptops don't COME with those anymore.
>>
> 
> BDR optical disks have enough capacity to easily deal with
> business, government, or personal documents.
> 
> It is only when we consider multimedia files, especially
> videos, that we run into problems.

   Good luck finding a BDR reader device/drivers even
   25 years from now.

   At my last job, they had about 10tb of stuff going back
   like forever - and SOME of it was of legal/historical
   significance but you'd never know exactly WHAT, so
   you had to keep it ALL alive. Other biz that might
   be 100tb easy.

   I remember ONE govt agency once demanded docs going
   back to the *1920s* ... fortunately they had THAT,
   albeit on old yellowed paper. Musta pissed-off the
   feds when they actually delivered that ... 'cause
   then they had to PAY OUT  :-)

>>
>>     The Library Of Congress and Smithsonian are FREAKIN'
>>     at this point. SO much historical data - but they
>>     can't even find the hardware/drivers to READ the
>>     often-proprietary media.
>>
> 
> This is another story that needs to be covered.  How will
> these and other institutions solve the problem and how can
> any solutions be extended to personal computing?
> 
> But since consumer-grade computing is dominated by fashion
> and fad, it's not likely that the grubbing corps will produce
> long-term storage technology.

   No, they won't. A FEW make adapters, but for HOW
   long ... and the drivers for whatever OS won't
   work forever.

   I have some 8-inch floppies - but NO way to read
   them anymore. Maybe SOME converter biz, but at
   what PRICE ? Even then 8-inch floppies were NOT
   all formatted the same at any level. Every maker
   tended to use their OWN "better" way.

   The govt/NASA stuff - even WORSE situation. Esp
   for NASA literal one-off devices/formats were made.

   For mag/optical ... in THEORY you can probe them
   micron by micron with mag/laser probes and then
   eventually figure out the format. Again $$$ !!!

   So, it's back to baked clay tablets ..... 10k
   years and still readable .......