Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2012/08/22
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I do not understand all this nit picking - my only question is: "is it technologically good enough for an offsite backup - an additional safeguard to normal backups?" If it is, it is worth it. It is not as if our work is indispensable as of now to the world at large. If our data is good enough to preserve, someone will find a way to do it. Cheers Jayanand On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 1:33 AM, Spencer Cheng <spencer at aotera.org> wrote: > Hi Adam, > > According to the National Archive in Canada, the only archival medium > suitable for 100 years is acid-free paper or microfiche. Our national > census data which has to be stored for 75 years by law is delivered to the > Archive on paper as far as I know. > > My preference is for laser-etched granite tablets. ;-) > > Modern tape drives have their own ECC scheme when they write data. Amazon > would have to constantly copy the data in order to ensure that any of the > tapes hasn't gone bad. Modern tapes are much improved over the DAT drives I > used 15 years ago but they certainly are not archival quality. > > Keeping any system up for 99.999% time is a major struggle requiring very > complex engineering. My imagination is significantly stretched by > 99.99999999%. It definitely sounds like marketing speak. :) > > Regards, > Spencer > > On Aug 22, 2012, at 15:16, Adam Bridge <abridge at mac.com> wrote: > > > You shouldn't really be surprised, Spencer. If data redundancy is built > into the storage - lots of extra bits to allow for recoverable data - then > you'd get the durability that Amazon quotes. > > > > You're guessing that they store on tape. That might be true but for > long-term storage tape isn't an ideal candidate. However it's stored, > Amazon says they have a technology, or a growth path for technology, that > will keep your data alive and available for the indefinite future. > > > > Looks pretty attractive to me. > > > > Adam > > > > On Aug 21, 2012, at 6:12 PM, Spencer Cheng <spencer at aotera.org> wrote: > > > >> Sounds nice. Sounds a bit too good to be true. I would guess Amazon > stores the data on tape on multiple sites. > >> > >> "Amazon Glacier is designed to provide average annual durability of > 99.999999999% for an archive" > >> > >> I am surprised that that level of durability is possible on perishable > media (and I don't really believe it :). > >> > >> One aspect of archival storage of digital data which is often > overlooked is that digital data has to be regularly transcribed/converted > to a current format for the archive to be useful. > >> > >> Regards, > >> Spencer > >> > >> On Aug 21, 2012, at 18:28, Adam Bridge <abridge at mac.com> wrote: > >> > >>> Amazon has announced "Glacier" as a long-term storage / infrequent > retrieval service. It would seem perfect for those who wish to have a > completely separate backup for their important image libraries. > >>> > >>> You can read about it here: > >>> > >>> <http://aws.amazon.com/glacier/> > >>> > >>> This is NOT for ready on-line storage. You might have to wait 5 hours > to get your data. But it looks reasonably affordable. > >>> > >>> Adam Bridge > >>> > >>> > >>> _______________________________________________ > >>> Leica Users Group. > >>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information > >>> > >> > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> Leica Users Group. > >> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Leica Users Group. > > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >