Re: [ARSCLIST] Digital Audio Preservation Question

["Richard L. Hess" <arclists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 06:24 PM 2008-04-07, Tom Fine wrote:

> Regarding that Boston Globe article, there are some really specious 
> assertions.
I agree, Tom. There are some valid points in the article, but to term 
data refreshing (moving from older to newer media) as "Sisyphean" is 
a bit extreme. Products like the Western Digital MyBook II are RAID-1 
(or can be) devices that offer internal backup and are available with 
2x 1TB drives for 1TB of capacity. Bringing a third 1TB drive off 
site (to one of the person's offices for example) goes a long way to 
protecting data without spending huge sums of money. Bring it back 
once a month or two to refresh it. Buy a new one in five years.

Sisyphus spent all his time rolling the rock up the hill. I spend 
perhaps 4-5 days per year managing data, and I've got 3 TB of storage 
(backed up). The computers spend far more time than I do refreshing 
and updating, but I spend less time managing data storage than I do 
managing physical storage--and it doesn't hurt my muscles/joints 
nearly as much.

Actually, I probably spend more time writing about it than managing it <smile>.

It's a skill that we need to learn, and one needs to spend money in 
the correct place. For each individual, the tradeoffs will be 
different. If you're not storing huge amounts of data, then the 
services may be a good choice, but I wouldn't rely on just one. What 
if they go poof? ("Poof" in this sense is a business term and not 
necessarily a technical term, but it could be <smile>.)

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.