Not magnetic tapes - the adhesive that holds the particles to the
substrate deteriorates in 15 years or so. I know this from bitter
experience. It also matters greatly if the tapes are stored head or
tail out. The print-through resulting from long-term storage head
out can obliterate material on neighboring layers. Cassettes - well
they don't last long at all.
There have been library archive studies that have put a similar short
life on CD's, and even less on DVDs - the laminate
deteriorates. Obviously again, storage conditions make all the
difference, just with like photographs.
ken
At 01:51 PM 3/8/2006, you wrote:
On Wed, Mar 08, 2006 at 07:36:03AM -0500, W S wrote:
> I have boxes of old tapes in the basement. How long will you be
> able to read those tapes? or the DVD, or CD?
Probably decades, unless you're unlucky - which you might be, so best to use
multiple media.
I back up to DVD each time I hit 4+GB, and also to a pair of duplicate DLTs
each time I hit 40GB that hasn't been run to tape yet (which happens every few
months now that I also shoot video). And I keep it all online of course. As
long as it's kept online, which there's no reason not to these days, it's easy
to back the whole of it up to each new medium as it comes along (I
imagine I'll
be using BD within a year or two).
John
--
Ken Durling
Composition and Music Services
Berkeley, CA
[510] 843-4419
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