Article on data rot on CD's

From: Teo Zenios <teoz_at_neo.rr.com>
Date: Wed Jul 28 16:50:11 2004

----- Original Message -----
From: "Doc Shipley" <doc_at_mdrconsult.com>
To: <General_at_mdrconsult.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 2004 5:16 PM
Subject: Re: Article on data rot on CD's


> Teo Zenios wrote:
>
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Doc Shipley" <doc_at_mdrconsult.com>
>
> >> My department had always followed those guidelines faithfully.
> >>Still, soon after I took over the subnet, the very first time they were
> >>asked by the state to provide archived files we were unable to produce.
> >> All the *tapes* had been stored properly, but all the machines with
> >>compatible *drives* had been surplussed long since, and the backup
> >>software junked. It was my first experience in data recovery and
> >>migration, and one that I've since learned is very common. Perversely,
> >>I seem to have developed a taste for it. :)
>
> > You would think the drives making the backups and the original software
> > would have been removed and placed in the vault with the media. Did some
of
> > the older tape drives have problems reading tapes from different
machines
> > because of head alignment?
>
> No problems with any of the 200-300 tapes I migrated, over two years'
> time. And yes, you would think, unless you stop to think that the IT
> for that department had been under the management of an archeology
> student who "knew a lot about computers". They just never equated the
> tapes in storage with the hardware going out the door.
>
> That scenario is a *lot* more common than it ought to be.
>
> Another one is that of an architect for whom I built a file server
> and backup server a few years ago. He had an Iomega 800MB parallel port
> tape drive (Travan 1, were they?) and insisted on using it, and the
> Iomega software, for the whole office backups.
>
> I begged him through 3 years and a couple of major upgrades to spend
> a few hundred dollars on a good refurbed SCSI tape drive. DDS2 or an
> Exabyte 8505 would have done him just fine. He couldn't afford "all
> that money to buy something I already have". He also never had the
> money to pay me to test the DR plan or backups. He had to get back a
> trashed or deleted drawing now and then, and considered that
> verification of his backups.
>
> About 2 years ago he called and he had crashed a disk, and he was
> having trouble getting his files back off of tape. It turned out that
> he'd been cleaning the tape drive as instructed, and rotating tapes on
> schedule. Rotating the same 10 travan tapes for 4.5 years.
>
> There were places on those tapes you could see through. We didn't
> get any data back that was less than 6 months old. It nearly put him
> out of business.
>
>
> Doc
>

Shouldn't he have a permanent backup tape every so often in the cycle? If
you screw up or delete a file and don't notice it quickly it will get lost
in the rotating cycle. The major problem I see companies forgetting is
offsite storage of backups in case of fire or something like that. Most
companies would not survive a fire because their financial backups would be
gone.
Received on Wed Jul 28 2004 - 16:50:11 BST