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Re: [ARSCLIST] Hard disk drives and DAT



I'm with John 100% here. Let me add that the profit motive has proven time and time to be a tremendous motivator. The government-handout or perpetual endowment model has proven less motivational. On the other hand, I haven't heard a persuasive argument that private market-driven entities could have won WWII or gotten to the moon, so there is something to be said for big non-market-driven entities funding big projects and big ideas. The problem is that the track record since Apollo has been terrible.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- From: "John Spencer" <js@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2007 5:24 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Hard disk drives and DAT



Richard (and George),

Let me apologize for the unintentional attribution of Richard's post as George's (I had purposefully left the "On Mar 27, 2007, at 6:59 PM, George Brock-Nannestad wrote:" - to show George was responding to Richard's post).

Having muddied that up sufficiently....let me address Richard's post below:

I would love to understand the commercial model that will be around in 100 years that accepts data up front for perpetual storage with just a deposit fee.

I would love to understand ANY model, commercial or otherwise, that will be around in 100 years.


Regarding Trusted Digital Repositories, commercial repositories, home- brew repositories, you name it - I don't think ANY of them will exist in their current fashion in 100 years. I'm hopeful we make as much progress in storage as we have in the last 50 years - and if the development cycle is anything like it has been, we'll have 100s of TBs of storage on our desktop (if we still use desks!). That is why many constantly repeat the mantra "migrate, migrate, migrate" digital preservation files.

Richard, you've indicated good results with 3 university/ government entities in another post. That has obviously worked for your clients. Mentioning Enron and Global Crossing as 2 corporate disasters is correct as well, yet neither of them were in the primary business of storing digital archives.

Might I contrast those observations with 3 other IT "disasters" that have cost US taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars (and the privacy of millions more):

1. FBI - Virtual Case File cost overruns:
http://www.washingtontechnology.com/print/20_5/25687-1.html

2. IRS - 5-year track record of cost overruns and delayed deliveries:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html? res=9C06E6DC173CF932A25751C1A9659C8B63

3. Dept. of Veteran's Affairs data loss of 20 million Veterans  information:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/06/05/78812_23NNvaprivacylaw_1.html

What I am trying to support with these examples is that no entity (government or corporate) is immune to budget cuts, cost overruns that shut down the project, going out of business, or otherwise screwing up.

My initial intent for responding to the post was simply to point out there are other options for underfunded archival projects. HDDs and CD-Rs are not the only cost-effective solutions, but I sense my thinking is in the minority....

Best,
John

John Spencer
BMS/ Chace LLC
1801 8th Ave. S.  Suite 200
Nashville, TN 37203
office (615) 385-1251
email: js@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
www.bridgemediasolutions.com


On Mar 28, 2007, at 1:04 PM, Richard L. Hess wrote:


At 12:29 PM 2007-03-28, John Spencer wrote:
George,

I'm not ready to go along with the assumption that all commercial
digital repositories charge a "per-chunk, per-time-period fee". There
are many cost models for these types of service, based on the Service
Level Agreement agreed to by the repository and the customer.

To assume "if you don't keep paying your data goes to the bit bucket
in the sky", well, isn't the same true for gas, electricity, water,
etc? Not quite sure I agree with the statement - and it would seem
than anyone using an outsourced digital repository would have
physical backups of the data somewhere else, if a proper disaster
plan is in place.

Are university systems inherently less prone to disaster?

I'd like more help to understand why university repositories in
general are superior to those in the commercial space (and have the
implied "added value" of existing in perpetuity).

Best,
John

John, you're quoting my words to which George was replying.


I would love to understand the commercial model that will be around in 100 years that accepts data up front for perpetual storage with just a deposit fee.

Cheers,

Richard

Richard L. Hess                   email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Aurora, Ontario, Canada       (905) 713 6733     1-877-TAPE-FIX
Detailed contact information: http://www.richardhess.com/tape/ contact.htm
Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.



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