Kodak Gold CD-R's going bye-bye?

From: Carlini, Antonio <Antonio.Carlini_at_riverstonenet.com>
Date: Wed Jul 25 15:47:41 2001

> Jerome Fine wrote:
>
>long I can expect any files to still be readable? Also, how long
is it likely
>that the magneto optical drive will last. I suspect that the
drives are likely

        This is (I hope) the key. 5.25" floppies don't
        appear on mainstream PCs anymore. 8" floppies
        are still available (but there were IIRC more
        varieties than there were with 5.25"). 3.5" floppies
        are too small to last too much longer (although
        so far many of the attempted replacements
        - like the LS120 - are backwards compatible).
        I'll try not to mention 3" floppies (plus all the
        others I've never come across).

        I expect that CD drives will go the same way over
        the next five to ten years. Finding one twenty
        years from now will be somewht tricky.

>"What sort of strategy is recommended to always be sure that old
files (stored
>on old media which can only be read with old drives) be
rescued/copied to newer
>media before that is no longer possible?"

        Firstly you have to get them into a portable
        digital form. For many things that just means
        copying them off the old media and archiving
        onto current media (i.e. CD or MO or
        whatever you happen to like). For some stuff
        (boot disks, copy-protected disks etc.) you
        have to archive in some kind of image format
        that preserves the original characteristics.
        (ISTRC reading a paper about some US uni
        doing exactly this and inventing an archival
        format ... but I've lost the reference).

        Once you have made the initial digital backup
        your task is much simpler. It would take me
        a lot of time to archive all of my floppy
        disks (especially if I try to verify that I can
        accurately recreate the original media from the
        archive copy). But once I've done that, I can
        probably fit all of them onto a handful of CDs
        (I'm guessing that I can get 500 floppies
        at least onto a CD and I doubt that I have
        even a few thousand ... so call it
        five CDs to be safe). That might take months,
        perhaps years of copying and verifying
        (cataloguing might be nice too !).

        Once it is done I could run off a second
        set in a few hours. And a third, and a fourth
        ...

        We'll skip DVD ... not enough of a leap forward
        and too hamstrung by Hollywood fo rthe prices
        to drop quickly enough for my liking.

        Five to ten years from now, when recordable
        C3D is commonly available, I can repeat the
        process for all my CDs (which by then may
        number a few thousand). At 125GB per C3D
        I should be able to get at least 175 CDs per
        C3D, so that's maybe 10 C3Ds to archive
        absolutely every piece of digital data I
        will have then.

        Again, a second backup for safety will
        (hopefully) be quite quick.

        At each stage, I can verify digital backup
        copies against each other fairly easily
        (I'm assuming that data rates will go
        up as capacity goes up ... otherwise
        I see a bottleneck looming!)

        It all depends on how careful I am making the
        initial archival copy.

>Obviously, every user would like to skip as many in-between steps
as possible.
>But since safety is perhaps more important, where should the
compromise be made?

        Anything I care about now, I burn twice
        for myself. I always check the CD-Rs
        individually against the original source.

>"What standard needs to be used to determine what files may be of
interest in
>50 years, 500 years or even 5000 years?"

        That's easy. You keep everything. Even the most
        expensive CD-R media is incredibly cheap
        compared to the prices three years ago.
        Obviously if you have terabytes of data this
        may not be so easy. But if you have terabytes
        of data it may still be easier to archive
        everything (which is likely to be a fairly
        mechanical process) rather than spend time
        sifting through deciding what to keep.

>It is fine to be discussing the technical details of how to save
files, but if everything
>needs to be saved, that creates many difficulties. For example, if
some software
>is being developed, it's rare that non-distribution files ever see
the light of day, much
>less that they get saved beyond the next distribution. In most
cases, only the final
>source and executable files get saved and it is probably rare for
OBJ and MAP files
>to be saved. What is the best way to develop criteria that can
determine which
>files will be of interest to someone looking to understand how
"programs" were
>written 5000 years ago? Better still would be to attempt to
determine the questions
>that will be asked 5000 years from now. Looking back, I would
suggest that the
>first footstep on the Moon back in 1969 may not have been as
important as the
>technology that was needed to make it all possible.

        I'm actually at the beginning of archiving some
        stuff at work right now. Copying the source directories
        (and the version control stuff) to CD in a PC-readable
        format is fairly straightforward. Same for the
        final listings, obj, exe etc. (although much
        of that could be recreated). The bit I think will
        be difficult for a historian to understand in
        a hundred years is how to build the product
        once you have re-created the environment.
        Archiving people's knowledge is not currently
        on the agenda ... it takes too much time.

        Antonio
Received on Wed Jul 25 2001 - 15:47:41 BST