I know M-Disc is supposed to be good but finding media is hard.
Is there something better for long term storage of family photos and other important data?
Ask HN: What is the best media for long term archival storage?
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Re: Ask HN: What is the best media for long term archival storage?
#2I would place my bets on:
CD-R because it is still around after more than two decades and the media is still in production, there are many drives and they are repairable.
My second choice would be DVD-R for similar reasons, but less history.
Third choice would be FAT formatted spinning disks used as write once. But they are much more susceptible to environmental flux.
Anything that is expensive or hard to come by or new, I would avoid…they’re almost certainly going to be a Zip drive equivalent in 20 years because there is no consumer demand for physical storage and less and less commercial demand because of the cloud.
But that’s me so YMMV. Good luck.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best media for long term archival storage?
#3There are various exotic things but you probably won't find working readers for them in the future. I would go with M-disc or a NAS that's continuously maintained.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best media for long term archival storage?
#4I would place my bets on: CD-R because it is still around after more than two decades and the media is still in production, there are many drives and they are repairable. My second choice would be DVD-R for similar reasons, but less history. Third choice would be FAT formatted spinning disks used as write once. But they are much more susceptible to environmental flux. Anything that is expensive or hard to come by or…
I have heard that writable Blu-Rays are thought to be much more durable than all but the best DVD-R.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best media for long term archival storage?
#5I've heard good old magnetic tapes (LTO nowadays) are the medium of choice for long-term storage within large organizations.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best media for long term archival storage?
#6I've heard good old magnetic tapes (LTO nowadays) are the medium of choice for long-term storage within large organizations.
The drives are expensive and the tapes are pretty much only useable for offline storage and not for keeping the data accessible.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best media for long term archival storage?
#7I've heard good old magnetic tapes (LTO nowadays) are the medium of choice for long-term storage within large organizations.
The drives are expensive and the tapes are pretty much only useable for offline storage and not for keeping the data accessible.
Pretty much only useable for offline storage and not for keeping the data accessible.
Which is pretty much what is meant by "long-term archival storage".
Re: Ask HN: What is the best media for long term archival storage?
#8Stone tablets are the only media I know of that lasts 1000s of years.
In all seriousness, this isn't a popular opinion around here, but cloud storage. I back my photos up to both iCloud and OneDrive. This way there is triple redundancy if you include the local copy. I trust Apple and Microsoft a lot more than myself to protect my data from spilled beverages, floods, fires, other acts of god, or just my own stupidity in general.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best media for long term archival storage?
#9I use AWS Glacier Deep Archive for exactly this, a few TB of photos, documents, etc.
RClone takes care of uploading to it. Works out to barely over $1/TB/month and AWS takes care of the media lifetime and all that.
I didn't bother with burned disks because then the backups are too local to me, nevermind spanking TBs across multiple disks.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best media for long term archival storage?
#10Stone tablets are the only media I know of that lasts 1000s of years. In all seriousness, this isn't a popular opinion around here, but cloud storage. I back my photos up to both iCloud and OneDrive. This way there is triple redundancy if you include the local copy. I trust Apple and Microsoft a lot more than myself to protect my data from spilled beverages, floods, fires, other acts of god, or just my own stupidity…
I think you might be right. Redundant cloud storage seems to be the way to go. I wish there was something a little more passive.