vinceJan 3, 2023

PSA: take some time in 2023 to back up your/your family's CD-Rs (and other recordable media) full of memories you threw into storage 10+ years ago; there's a decent chance they've started to rot!

the tenuously thin layer of dyes/adhesives holding the data *will* break down over time, rapidly so if their environment is uncontrolled, the surface was previously nicked/contaminated, or they were cheap ones to begin with

Show threadauthor_is_ShrikeTronđź” đź’‰x5Jan 4, 2023

@0x56 I made lots of efforts to use quality Taiyo-Yuden CDC's, but good reminder to move to a spare SSD / HDD.

I've heard from former WD tech that SD / flash cards (drives?) is bad for archival as they will also decharge / "forget" sooner than you'd expect.

Show threadvinceJan 4, 2023
@ShrikeTron ugh yeah, i imaged my box of old portable flash storage devices ~2 years ago, and about 12% of them fail to return consistent data across multiple passes. all less than 15 years old, most 8-10y, and afaik primarily older SLC technology. i'm no expert on flash nor storage, but i can't imagine multi-level cell and process shrink improving any of this...
Show threadvince
@ShrikeTron maybe my post should've included more caution or specific advice on this aspect, but the really shitty part is that all the options are a bit like a campfire (you can choose faster or slower burning wood, and sometimes rekindle one from embers, but if you stop tending it for too long all you have left is dust)
Jan 4, 2023 at 8:46pmWeb
Show threadauthor_is_ShrikeTronđź” đź’‰x5Jan 4, 2023

@0x56 Right.

I'm moved to a NAS setup of dual-drives, local-backup, and cloud-backup so this backup-dance gets a best-practices process.