17 Mar
2005
17 Mar
'05
8:08 a.m.
Tom Jennings wrote:
I'd like to offer that there is no such thing as
archival computer
media. None.
This is not disputed.
If you somehow think that tapes stored in a controlled
vault is
more reliable, or less susceptible to bit rot than rotating
spindles, I believe you are wrong (and my every experience and
observation says otherwise). Only fiche and paper are statically
reliable.
You are omitting cost. Tapes in a vault cost significantly less over 10 years
than the cost of 4 live systems + replacement hard drives + network bandwidth +
electricity for your method.
Your method, unless I am misunderstanding you, has no revisioning. It protects
against hardware failure, but how many revisions do you keep? What protects
against you mistakenly deleting the wrong directory, etc.?
I agree completely that archival data should be monitored in some fashion
instead of being locked away forever. And, cost permitting, transferred to new
media.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
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