Preservation of correspondence

Add to the fact that paper seems to be far more resilient then say CD backups (which I've seen several CD's that I created around 97-98 which are now having problems reading certain sections) and Tape backups of today I wonder if they are truly as high grade as say the old TU78s of the past (I've had my share of readying nearly 1,500 tapes that had been stored in outside storage units for over 10 years - no protection from heat/cold, frost/humidity) Most of them - astoundingly - were still actually readable, however some - even with baking - separated from their transport, others did a major number on the tape heads with globs of sludge as they read, but still over all, the tapes even well past their prime and kept in unbearable conditions, still favored well. I would wonder if todays consumerized backup media would fare as well. While bulky - I have been printing out nearly 9 years worth of email correspondence relating to all of the Atari historical research I've been doing and sorting it out to keep on record, I nearly lost it all due to a sudden HD failure, but fortunately had a backup image on another disk, I don't trust digital based storage for archival purposes. Curt Al Kossow wrote: