Let's say that I want to store my data for 200 years so that my great-great-great grand children can access it. The data I want to store include: images, text, videos. What should I do?
Ask HN: How to store your data for 200 years?
1–10 of 45 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to store your data for 200 years?
#2M-DISC is supposedly good for 1,000 years.
Re: Ask HN: How to store your data for 200 years?
#3Money + redundancy
Copies in multiple physical locations. Copies on paper if it's text. Digital copies on tapes and archive quality DVDs. Storage in low UV, low moisture, low everything fireproofed faraday cages.
Store some complete hardware along with some copies for helping to access the data, along with instructions.
Then assume all of that will fail and take a load of money and put it in a trust so it can be accessed at intervals to your descendents upon instructions in your will where an executor (who is also paid well) can verify that they've done the work to copy your data to the new types of media of the day. Include detailed instructions so that the monetary rewards based off a 1% skim off the growth of the invested funds to increase the chance of the investments lasting through generations. Ensure that the executor can pass being an executor on to future generations through additional financial rewards.
Or just don't worry about it. If it's sentimental data have it live on through stories and good memories :)
Re: Ask HN: How to store your data for 200 years?
#4Establish a legal trust to care and preserve the data and fund it.
A slightly cheaper lifehack - have the data official published and get it submitted to the Library of Congress who will preserve it for you.
Re: Ask HN: How to store your data for 200 years?
#5M-DISCs were created with the intent to store data for long periods of time:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-DISC
The company claim is 1000 years of storage life. Independent testers have rated it for up to several hundred years.
The main drawback is ensuring that DVD / Blu-ray readers still exist that far into the future.
Re: Ask HN: How to store your data for 200 years?
#6Encode it in your X chromosome. Bonus points if your descendants can hallucinate the images and video without any assistance. That would be useful if there's an apocalypse, but they may be burned as witches.
Re: Ask HN: How to store your data for 200 years?
#7"GitHub captured a snapshot of every active public repository on 02/02/2020 and preserved that data in the Arctic Code Vault. [...] will last 1,000 years"
https://archiveprogram.github.com/arctic-vault/
As startup founder my question is if anybody would pay for such a service?
Re: Ask HN: How to store your data for 200 years?
#8Any storage is incredibly volatile. Physical players, media, humans struggle with storing, moving things around, finding ways to play it, unless it can be converted to stay with current media mutations.
Consider the rarity of Betamax players, early cellulite film. Obscure media like M-Discs I don't know if there will be players around in 50 years (zip drives anyone?). Or how people won't recognize the media if found in storage.
I feel acid-free paper and ink is still the best for archival. We have 8mm film from my grandparents that are about 60 years old, and my family was able to convert it to digital.
Re: Ask HN: How to store your data for 200 years?
#9Print everything on archival paper. Store in archival boxes a climate controlled environment.
Good luck.
PS: ask your kids if they want the stuff you are trying to impose on them first. They might not want it.
Re: Ask HN: How to store your data for 200 years?
#10One of the issues you'll have to deal with is getting the data out. It's been less than 30 years since zip discs were available yet it is hard to find a drive and the drivers for modern computers. If you have a zip disc, you will have to work at getting your data out.
Given how easily hardware gets outdated, I would guess that a book-like apparatus made of plastic with the data pressed rather than written and a place to put it so that it's protected from the elements and whatever might damage it. It is your best bet now. Better yet, harden glass with the data etched into it.