On Tuesday 16 August 2005 16:13, Mike McCarty wrote: > Reuben D. Budiardja wrote: > > Hello, > > I'm wondering if people could give me suggestion about the most > > economical ways to archive data more permanently. <snip> On Tuesday 16 August 2005 15:57, Ezra Nugroho wrote: > USB drives? Scratch proof, more heat resistant. > Evenutally, a tape system will probably be more economical. > > The jury is still out on data longevity of CDs and DVDs. Tape > is known to have 20+year longevity. I'd say that in my situation, if the data is not needed after 4-5 years we probably won't need it at all. It's just that we don't want to just wipe off a desktop machine clean without doing some amount of archiving. So I'm not worry about longevity. > > One thing to consider with regards to using compressed > images... they are intolerant of defects in the storage medium. Good point. Something to consider indeed. > In regards to using (as one suggested) an external disc drive... > > Whatever storage medium you use should be kept off-site. If you > need an on-site copy, it should be considered just that... a copy. > If you have a disaster at your site, like a fire e.g, you would > likely lose everything there. Thanks, although in my situation this does not really apply. The data is not that important, this is just a case where we wouldn't want to just wipe it off. > OTOH, if you have network capabilities to other computers located > at a distance, then archival over the network, using e.g. rsync, > is a very viable solution. It does not, however solve the problem > of backup of the remote system. For our 'active' data that change all the time, I use rsnapshot to a backup machine. It'd be nice to be able to take every one or two month snapshot and put it in a more permanent medium. But I am not sure if I can do that easily and economically with about ~200GB data. RDB
