I would definitely go for babylonian clay...
On Dec 12, 2012, at 10:31 PM, Adrian Goldman wrote: > I say write them out onto acid-free paper: should be good for at least 300 > years without active management, if there is no fire. If that doesn't work, > I believe babylonian clay tablets have an even longer expected life time…. > > Dale, I must say I am impressed… I gave up after the exabyte to DAT > transition, and decided that if I really wanted to get data sets from (my) > old projects, it would be easier to regrow the crystals… > > Adrian > > > On 13 Dec 2012, at 00:22, Dale Tronrud wrote: > >> I don't believe there is a solution that does not involve active >> management. You can't write your data and pick up those media 25 >> years later and expect to get your data back -- not without some >> heroic effort involving the construction of your own hardware. >> >> I have data from Brian Matthews' lab going back to the mid-1970's >> and those data started life on 7-track mag tapes. I've moved them >> from there to 9-track 1600 bpi tapes, to 9-track 6250 bpi tapes, to >> just about every density of Exabyte tape, to DVD, and most recently >> to external magnetic hard drives (each with USB, Firewire, and eSATA >> interfaces). The hard drives are about five years old and so far >> are holding up. Last time I checked I could still read the 10 year >> old DVD's. I'm having real trouble reading Exabyte tapes. >> >> Write your data to some medium that you expect to last for at least >> five years but anticipate that you will then have to move them to >> something else. >> >> Instead of spending time working on the 100 year solution you should >> spend your time annotating your data so that someone other than you >> can figure out what it is. Lack of annotation and editing is the >> biggest problem with old data. >> >> Dale Tronrud >> >> P.S. If someone needs the intensities for heavy atom derivatives of >> Thermolysin written in VENUS format, I'm your man. >> >> >> >> On 12/12/2012 1:57 PM, Richard Gillilan wrote: >>> Better option? Certainly not TAPE or electromechanical disk drive. CD's and >>> DVD's don't last nearly that long and James Holton has pointed out. >>> >>> I suppose there might be a "cloud" solution where you rely upon data just >>> floating around out there in cyberspace with a life of its own. >>> >>> Richard >>> >>> On Dec 12, 2012, at 4:41 PM, Dale Tronrud wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> Good luck on your search in 100 years for a computer with a >>>> USB port. You will also need software that can read a FAT32 >>>> file system. >>>> >>>> Dale "Glad I didn't buy a lot of disk drives with Firewire" Tronrud >>>> >>>> On 12/12/2012 1:02 PM, Richard Gillilan wrote: >>>>> SanDisk advertises a "Memory Vault" disk for archival storage of photos >>>>> that they claim will last 100 years. >>>>> >>>>> (note: they do have a scheme for estimating lifetime of the memory, >>>>> Arrhenius Equation ... interesting. Check it out: >>>>> www.sandisk.com/products/usb/memory-vault/ and click the Chronolock tab.). >>>>> >>>>> Has anyone here looked into this or seen similar products? >>>>> >>>>> Richard Gillilan >>>>> MacCHESS >>>>> > Dr Laura Spagnolo Institute of Structural Molecular Biology University of Edinburgh Room 506, Darwin Building King's Buildings Campus Edinburgh EH9 3JR United Kingdom T: +44 (0)131 650 7066 F: +44 (0)131 650 8650 http://www.biology.ed.ac.uk/research/institutes/structure/homepage.php?id=lspagnolo laura.spagn...@ed.ac.uk -- The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
