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Re: [ARSCLIST] long range file storage
Russ Hamm wrote:
I've been following the discussion on long-range file storage, and it seems
that with all the complexities of burning and storing optical media as well
as concerns about being able to play the media decades down the line
(storing original player devices, etc.) it may not be impractical to
consider the alternative of redundant arrays of independent hard disks and
tape backups - along the business model of data storage?
Yes, a plastic CD or DVD in itself is cheap (even at $1), but might it not
be more efficient, even more economical to set up systems like this? Once
the system is engineered and set up, the technicians just create and save
the audio files, concerning themselves only with file management, naming,
metadata, and so on. Any thoughts on this?
Russ Hamm
Ed Tech Specialist
National School District
San Diego, CA
http://nsd.us
Russ,
Most folks working with the long-term preservation of audio settled on
the model/approach you describe above as the "best practice" several
years back. It has been widely outlined in the literature, discussed a
great deal at conferences and on listservs, but first came to my
attention (due to my field) back in 2001 through the CLIR volume "Folk
Heritage Collections in Crisis":
http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub96/contents.html
It was a hard thing for me and my object-focused worldview to swallow
then, but over the intervening 4 years I've wrapped my head around it
and have seen the light (or embraced the darkness, depending on one's
perspective).
However, as Richard notes, many of us are not in a position (staff-wise,
funding-wise, expertise-wise) to be able to set up and run such a
system. I'm one of them, as anyone who sat through my ARSC presentation
this year will know. Although most of our files that have been
digitized for preservation sit around precariously (and regretfully) on
a number of external HDDs at the moment, optical media (and in my case
CD-R) are a somewhat problematic and irritating stop gap for me to deal
with the born-digital recordings I yank off our Marantz PMD670 & PMD660
machines when the fieldworkers return from interviews.
However, we're currently dangling our feet just above the deep water of
RAID/LTO-based file management here too--I've got budget approval to buy
a system this year. Now I just have to get the nerve to do it--and more
importantly, the training to maintain it.
andy
--
*********************************
Andy Kolovos
Archivist/Folklorist
Vermont Folklife Center
P.O. Box 442
Middlebury, VT 05753
(802) 388-4964
akolovos @ vermontfolklifecenter.org
http://www.vermontfolklifecenter.org