cross-posted from: https://lemmy.eco.br/post/4492477

How to store digital files for posterity? (hundreds of years)

How to store digital files for posterity? (hundreds of years)

I have some family videos and audios and I want to physically save them for posterity so that it lasts for periods like 200 years and more. This allows great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren to have access.

From the research I did, I found that the longest-lasting way to physically store digital content is through CD-R gold discs, but it may only last 100 years. From what I researched, the average lifespan of HDs and SSDs is no more than 10 years.

I came to the conclusion that the only way to ensure that the files really pass from generation to generation is to record them on CDs and distribute them to the family, asking them to make copies from time to time.

It’s crazy to think that if there were suddenly a mass extinction of the human species, intelligent beings arriving on Earth in 1000 years would probably not be able to access our digital content. While cave paintings would probably remain in the same place.

What is your opinion?

    • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.caEnglish
      73·
      7 months ago

      HDDs aren’t written physically onto the plate. They flip magnetic fields. Anything relying on magnetic fields to store data is going to have a lifespan measured in decades, at best.

        • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.caEnglish
          31·
          7 months ago

          Highly presumptive on many fronts, as well as conflating the ability to reliably write with the ability to read data over the same time span. So, tell me of the connector on this hard drive that you have that is older than me. And what do you use that drive for beyond as a curiosity?

            • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.caEnglish
              21·
              7 months ago

              And there’s that presumption. Just like the idea that a Faraday cage will block a magnetic field such as the earth’s. And unless your suggestion is that the poster just has to store his archive on the moon or farther, it will still be subject to influence from another magnetic field. And everything I’ve read puts bit rot at about 1% per year, which means, even with aggressive error correction about 50% of the archive will be lost within 70 years without an active refresh of the media. That’s not what’s generally meant by archiving. If it was, we would be talking about a process and a commitment by third parties to keep some random person’s archive intact for a century, unless what you’re really trying to suggest is that the real trick to building an archive that will last over a century is to live even longer?