Flash Drive For Long-term Storage?

[Thanh-BKK]

Hello

I have a question. If i need to store some REALLY IMPORTANT data in a way that it will guaranteed be there in 5 or 10 years or so, would a flash drive be a possibility?

I know that CD's and DVD's over time become unreadable (some anyway) and HDD's are easy to damage by outside forces - once dropped on tiled floor, they're junk.

Now flash drives have come down in price significantly (i just got an 8 GB Kingston for 990 Baht the other day) and the data i am talking about would easily fit on a couple of those. I have read that they are virtually unbreakable (except for fire and hammer attacks) and for their size i can put them into the safe box and they are, well, safe.

But how do they keep data over long time? Is there any chance that, 5 or 10 years down the road, the data will have gone?

Appreciate any advice......

Thanh

Edited March 19, 2008 by Thanh-BKK

[Crossy]

I don't believe flash is a viable long term storage medium or, for that matter for short term storage of vital data.

If I were you, I'd use several different media, two copies on archival quality CD-R (use different drives and disk manufacturers), another copy on a hard drive and keep them in different locations. Make sure all the copies are still readable every 12 months or so, re-make any that are not.

It's also wise to up-grade the storage technology every few years, no guarantee that your HDD or CD is going to have a reader available 12 years down the line (remember the Doomsday Project on 12" laser disks, took a huge effort to recover all the data after only a few years because all the readers were lost).

Finally, anything that can be stored as hard copy should be

Edited March 19, 2008 by Crossy

[rak sa_ngop]

I don't believe flash is a viable long term storage medium or, for that matter for short term storage of vital data.

If I were you, I'd use several different media, two copies on archival quality CD-R (use different drives and disk manufacturers), another copy on a hard drive and keep them in different locations. Make sure all the copies are still readable every 12 months or so, re-make any that are not.

It's also wise to up-grade the storage technology every few years, no guarantee that your HDD or CD is going to have a reader available 12 years down the line (remember the Doomsday Project on 12" laser disks, took a huge effort to recover all the data after only a few years because all the readers were lost).

Finally, anything that can be stored as hard copy should be

Does that mean that 'archival quality' is only available for CDs and not for DVDs. i.e. you will need to make a lot more copies to get a large volume of data stored??

[Crossy]

Does that mean that 'archival quality' is only available for CDs and not for DVDs. i.e. you will need to make a lot more copies to get a large volume of data stored??

No, archival DVDs are available, but personal experience suggests that CDs are more robust.

A fairly old article, but worth a look http://digitalcontentproducer.com/videoenc...Archival082505/ and a follow up http://digitalcontentproducer.com/videoenc..._as_Gold090905/

[percy2]

Interesting topic.

Everything I have read suggest that flash drive memory is volatile and therefore not suiteable for long term storage.

From a practical perspective , I have hade archival quality CD's and DVD's fail , also hard drive's (ones stored unused) , I've lost data from online storage services , I've also had a microdrive fail.

But for the life of me I cannot remember a flash drive ever failing or losing data from one. I must admit I've never used one intentionally for long term storage , but I know that I have a few old ones knocking around that are going on for 5 years old (they come in handy as boot disks for for smaller programs.)

So from personal experience what has everybody else found?

I know these drives have estimates on life cycles based on WM-RM but is there anything out there that estimates length of life based on WO-RM?

Cheers

[meadish_sweetball]

Does that mean that 'archival quality' is only available for CDs and not for DVDs. i.e. you will need to make a lot more copies to get a large volume of data stored??

No, archival DVDs are available, but personal experience suggests that CDs are more robust.

I buy the best CDs and DVDs I can find here in Chiang Mai for backup purposes, but in just 6 years of backing up, I have come to the same conclusion as Crossy - CDs appear more resistant to wear and tear than DVDs.

Not sure about long term storage on flash memories as I have never tried it.

[Crossy]

When you see how flash actually works http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/flash-memory.htm .... would you trust your data to a slack-handfull of electrons hanging about on a bit of isolated silicon?

Bring on the Fowler-Nordheim tunneling (I vaguely remember that from 'Physical Electronics' at uni.)

[jdinasia]

for truly vital backup, store on professional servers that back themselves up too.

[Thanh-BKK]

Hello

Thank you very much to everyone for the input. I think i will then do the suggested - keep one backup on a HDD and burn another on those specific DVD's (if i used CD's it would be too many - it's about 14 GB of data). Can anyone suggest me a specific type of DVD blanks? Must be available in Thailand!

With kind regards.....

your Thanh

[JakeBKK]

Hello

I have a question. If i need to store some REALLY IMPORTANT data in a way that it will guaranteed be there in 5 or 10 years or so, would a flash drive be a possibility?

I know that CD's and DVD's over time become unreadable (some anyway) and HDD's are easy to damage by outside forces - once dropped on tiled floor, they're junk.

Basically you can say the higher the storage density per cm2, so the more likely data corruption by time.

CDS/DVDS are total rubbish for long term backups (Sorry, but thats my opinion) CDr/DVDr start to disintegrate in Europe after ~12 month. Asia is different. I live 45 m away from the ocean (at least at the weekends) and here you can literally wait for it.

Since 2003 i use Hard drives. They have a 5 year warranty, they are cheap, so i cycle them after the 3 tape hanoi scheme ( i like western digital coz i get a free data recovery voucher) a monthy backup on a 4th hdd and 3 dvd's ,stored in different locations.

If you only want to store personal pictures, this is by far to complicated.

try something like this: http://www.swisspicturebank.com/

there are similar services for data also available.

Greetings

Jake

[autonomous_unit]

For those needing to store durable CD/DVD backups... there is a really interesting open source program called dvdisaster... Dvdisaster page at Wikipedia has a brief description and links to the real project page.

This is useful because it allows you to generate an extra checksum/backup DVD and store data in such a way that all data can be recovered even after significant "bit rot" has occurred on the original or checksum media. They have a Windows version, as well as it being available in many Linux distributions. My recommendation would be to use this to generate each "set" of DVDs and still store duplicate sets at multiple locations in case of total loss or damage to a single set. I've heard good things about it, but never used it myself.

Read on for geeky alternatives: I don't need to archive permanent data, but protect a large working set of data that changes all the time; I'm too lazy to sort out what data goes on which backups, so I take the approach of live "online storage" with RAID and then remote Internet-based mirroring between servers that are actually in different countries (where I could put a cheap Linux box on a UPS at a friend's house). I just put my entire "home directory" onto the system. Each server also automatically keeps online, generational backups (daily, weekly, monthly) to allow recovery of older data in case a mistake is mirrored between them before I notice it. I just feed the servers with new parts every few years when one gets errors or when I need to expand the system. If this sounds complicated, it's because computers and systems software are my expertise and my livelihood...

[Gary A]

Good CD's, cheap CD's. I have lost most of my back ups and other data. I have a plastic storage box full of programs and data disks in the original cases. I say that at least half of them are now junk. I have NO faith in CD's at all. On the other hand, I bought a Sony digital camera years ago and some of the smaller Memory sticks (32MB) that I no longer use have pictures that were taken years ago also. I have NEVER lost any pictures or data on any of the eight Memory sticks that I have, Even the old original Sony read/writer still works fine.

[jackk]

I gave up CD/DVD too. In Thailand after 2 years all backup get lost.

I keep all data on 2 separate HD, and nothing is lost. HD prices are cheap so it's for me the best and safest way.

Regarding Flash storage, although it's not supposed to last for long time I still have a 256MB Kodak PC card bought in 1998 with over 1,000 pictures I took at that time. Not a single pictures has been lost/damaged. But I wouldn't use it for important backup though!

[autonomous_unit]

All of these consumer-grade products are fragile and have non-zero failure rates, so the key is redundancy no matter what you choose.

Among my avid digital photographer friends, lots of flash memory failures are reported. They range from files with internal corruption after a day of shooting to cards physically crumbling into bits of plastic and dust. Just like among my computer science friends, lots of hard disk failures are reported... the larger your sample size, the more failures you see. In truth, nobody should assume something is reliable just because they know one lucky guy who "hasn't had any problems."

I thought I had a bunch of CDs go bad, but I kept them and a few years later tried them in a new computer on a lark. They all read perfectly, so it would seem that the different drives have a lot to do with it as well!

[rak sa_ngop]

Now flash drives have come down in price significantly (i just got an 8 GB Kingston for 990 Baht the other day)

Nobody else has asked the obvious question so I will. Where do you buy an 8 GB Kingston for 990 baht?

The ones I have seen in MBK are about 1700 baht (they seem to have an 'import' sticker on the packaging), although I have seen a 4 GB Kingston for about 800 baht elsewhere.

[JakeBKK]

Now flash drives have come down in price significantly (i just got an 8 GB Kingston for 990 Baht the other day)

Nobody else has asked the obvious question so I will. Where do you buy an 8 GB Kingston for 990 baht?

The ones I have seen in MBK are about 1700 baht (they seem to have an 'import' sticker on the packaging), although I have seen a 4 GB Kingston for about 800 baht elsewhere.

I think Thanh juggled the numbers a little.... seen the 4 GB for 690, but 8GB for a 4 GB price ? I WANT TOO !

[Thanh-BKK]

Hi

I got that one in a small shop on the 3rd floor of Panthip. It's a shop that sells pretty much only memory cards, thumb drive and similar products. I bought the 8 GB one (warranty from Synnex) for 990 Baht and another 2 GB for 290 Baht. I think 4 GB they sell for 490 or 590, not sure.

But the DO sometimes have "promotion days" and it seems i got there on one such day! I remember that from before when i got a 2 GB micro-SD there (also Kingston) which was very cheap (forgot the price tough) and when i wanted one more the next day they cost considerably more.

Best regards......

Thanh