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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?

#31

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

xupybd wrote: post #25
elamje wrote: post #23

I’ve been considering this for over 5 years. So far, cutting edge commercial is https://www.piql.com/ , the Norwegian company that did the GitHub Arctic code vault. Their tapes have instructions on how to decode the data inscribed on the tape itself. Truly cutting edge (non-commercial) is Microsoft’s Project Silica optical storage as well as DNA storage. I’ve been thinking about building something in this space since…

One thing I would pay for is a way to engrave my SSH keys into thin steel plates as a QR code. I have a safe with my critical keys in it but that is only fire proof for 3 hours. If things got really hot those are gone. In theory it shouldn't be an issue as I have them backed up other places but it would give me peace of mind to have them on a fire proof media.

Credit where credit is due, the crypto space has some innovations in this area. Fully analog secret storage has a few options I have come across. One is where you punch/stamp your secret into a piece of steel. The blank is pre-scored with a template or letters so you can do this with just a hammer. The other is where you have little rings pre-stamped with letters/numbers which you then assemble onto a tube.

A random site[0] I found offering some of the solutions. Given the industry, I assume this is just the most highly astro-turfed platform, but there you go.

[0] https://cryptosteel.com/

Re: Ask HN: What is the best media for long term archival storage?

#32

Post by suramya_tomar »

brudgers wrote: post #2

I 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…

The issue with CD/DVDs is that they degrade quickly over time. The CDs I burnt in early 2000s had tons of read errors when I tried restoring in 2022.

Personally, I think storing data on an external Harddrive is the most stable option. You can keep upgrading the setup as required and the bit rot is minimal.

I backup my data on multiple drives, along with redundant copies stored in multiple locations.

I have heard good things about Tapes as well but have no personal experience with them.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best media for long term archival storage?

#33

Post by serallak »

BOOSTERHIDROGEN wrote: post #14
lockhouse wrote: post #8

Stone 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…

How do you backup photos to onedrive ? Did you copy from Photos app on Mac to another drive?

The onedrive app on Android has a "camera backup" functionality.

It saves images and videos from any folder to the onedrive cloud.

I've configured it, and then I sync the onedrive to a Synology Nas at home.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best media for long term archival storage?

#34

Post by xupybd »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #31
xupybd wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I would pay for is a way to engrave my SSH keys into thin steel plates as a QR code. I have a safe with my critical keys in it but that is only fire proof for 3 hours. If things got really hot those are gone. In theory it shouldn't be an issue as I have them backed up other places but it would give me peace of mind to have them on a fire proof media.

Credit where credit is due, the crypto space has some innovations in this area. Fully analog secret storage has a few options I have come across. One is where you punch/stamp your secret into a piece of steel. The blank is pre-scored with a template or letters so you can do this with just a hammer. The other is where you have little rings pre-stamped with letters/numbers which you then assemble onto a tube. A random…

That's very cool. A lot of work to encode a long ssh key.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best media for long term archival storage?

#35

Post by scarface74 »

lockhouse wrote: post #8

Stone 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…

Any pictures from my phone get synced to:

- iCloud Drive

- OneDrive

- Google Photos - I still haven’t gone over the 15GB free space since Google instituted the limit. But I’ll pay for extra storage when needed.

- Amazon Drive - free with Prime

My videos get synced to everything but Amazon Drive.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best media for long term archival storage?

#36

Post by borplk »

lockhouse wrote: post #8

Stone 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…

Bad idea because even if they don't lose the data you may lose your access to the account due to things like random account suspensions.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best media for long term archival storage?

#38

Post by mindbyte »

seized wrote: post #9

I 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.

That sounds like a very good p/l. But I'm still not convinced as it is still common for cloud providers to 'randomly' close accounts without warning and the possibility to appeal.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best media for long term archival storage?

#39

Post by mkj »

xupybd wrote: post #25
elamje wrote: post #23

I’ve been considering this for over 5 years. So far, cutting edge commercial is https://www.piql.com/ , the Norwegian company that did the GitHub Arctic code vault. Their tapes have instructions on how to decode the data inscribed on the tape itself. Truly cutting edge (non-commercial) is Microsoft’s Project Silica optical storage as well as DNA storage. I’ve been thinking about building something in this space since…

One thing I would pay for is a way to engrave my SSH keys into thin steel plates as a QR code. I have a safe with my critical keys in it but that is only fire proof for 3 hours. If things got really hot those are gone. In theory it shouldn't be an issue as I have them backed up other places but it would give me peace of mind to have them on a fire proof media.

Signing keys like ssh keys aren't so important, you should be able to replace those out of band. Decryption keys are more important to back up.
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