[game_preservation] Long-Term Storage

[Captain Commando]

I second that. We should do a survey and get reports from actual data
archives - how do they do it, how much is the budget, etc. Also how much of
the rules they follow regarding redundancy and data migration! For instance,
how does the Internet Archive do it? I assume they have had to have gone
through at least one data migration from their older drives...

I am convinced the most efficient way is storing data in mass on redundantly
backed up drives (two copies of the same drive, stored in different
locations, one is never used until migration is required or source drive
malfunctions) and particularly important data is backed up to optical disc
(currently most cost effective method is DVD-R, at least until Blu-ray
becomes $1 a disc or comparable GB/$ ratio). Storing data on Hard Drives
means they can be accessed fairly easily and data can be migrated in large
quantities and accessed fairly rapdily - unlike magnetic tape. I'm not sure
if tape is easier to recover from than a broken hard drive though, but HDD
recovery is very expensive. Obviously when Blu-Ray discs become
cost-effective, you can back up entire drives with Blu-Ray (just set some
grad students or interns to work on it in the lab, as it takes awhile :P).
Drives will also likely have to be formatted in NTSF as Linux and now OSX
can read (and write to!) the drives as well as its native Windows.

If anybody has a better idea for how to do it, let me know, but this is the
best I can think of in terms of compatibility.

In terms of drive size, 750 and 1TB drives do exist, but the larger the
drive, the less stable. If anybody can find a lot of SeaGate 160GB for dirt
cheap, that might be the best method.

Here's a list of current prices on Newegg. the most cost-effective is
Seagate 750GB, though Western Digital makes cheaper 160GB drives (the
recommended size for largest size vs stability). You can probably get them
in bulk for cheaper from the manufacturer. It appears that SATA is the
format to go with because A. you can set up a RAID system and B. many
computers today have SATA compatibility and some don't have ATA drive
support at all. if you're using external drive enclosures, be sure to get
ones that have Firewire connection as that's currently the fastest.

I'd also have to see some studies on drive longevity if it's kept in a
stable environment and never used and then activated after a long time (and
also a drive that's constantly running, or only being run for short periods
and being shut on and off fairly regularly).

Seagate

160 GB - 3.33GB/$
250GB - 4.31/$
320GB - 4.57/$
500GB - 6.66/$
750GB - 7.50/$
1TB - 4.54/$


Western Digital

80 - 2.05
160 - 3.63/$
250 - 4.31
320 - 4.92
500 - 6.66
750 - 6.25
1TB - 5.26

On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 7:03 PM, Andrew Armstrong <andrew at aarmstrong.org>
wrote:


> Yeah, the manufacturer and the medium are not really going to have a chance

> of being the same in 200 years.

>

> It'd be nice to investigate a proper archive. I wish I knew of some in the

> UK, there must be data archives (the British Library perhaps) even if they

> have nothing for computer software archives.

>

> Andrew

>

> Captain Commando wrote:

>

>> Even if they say this disc will last for 200 years, I don't think the

>> company is going to be around 200 years when we find out whether or not they

>> were right :P

>>

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>




-- 
The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

"Until next time..."
Captain Commando
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