Can anyone tell me how long data will last on a hard drive - roughly.

What a strange question. Thats like asking how long is a piece of string.

If you are talking in respect of how long before the data deteriorates then that depends on how well you look after the drive. For most practical purposes it will last indefinitely.

However is you subject the drive to extremes of temperate, humidity or expose it to strong magnetic fields, or drop it, then the data is likely to be corrupted.

If you are thinking of using a hard drive for long term storage then think of something else. Hard drives are electro-mechanical devices and as such are prone to failure without warning. Long term data storage should be on something a little more substantial like as CD/DVD disk.

Stuart

so data on a CD/DVD kept in the dark should last indefinately??

Even data on a CD/DVD will deteriorate in time but CD/DVD haven't been around long enough for anyone to come up with a reasonable time scale. I have seen 100 years quoted but that is subject to confirmation.

However it would certainly be more robust than the magnetic storage on a hard disk.

Stuart

Stuart is right.
Due in part to its magnetic nature, and the fact that anything with moving parts inevitably wears out, hard drives are not great long-term storage media (though you can't beat it in terms of accessing and re-writeability). CD/DVDs are potentially more stable because they don't SEEM to naturally decay on their own and if you take care of them would seem to last indefinitely.

Flash memory would be another contender due to its solid-stateliness, though they do die after so many write cycles. Also, formats change too quickly to even truly bother with LONG-term storage.

To answer the original question, hard drives and other mechanical devices are commonly rated in their time before failure, or how long you could constantly run it before you could expect it to die. Some measure in hours (50 000+) and some measure in years (usually around 5 or so, covered under warranty). Of course, these need to be taken with a grain of salt, but they give you an idea of how long well-kept drives are expected to live.

I wish my lawn was emo so it would cut itself.

thanks for the input guys. I guess if you have your data backed up on an external usb hard drive, that is a satisfactory way of storing it over the long term as the chances of both your internal hard drive and the external drive failing at the same time are very small indeed.

Don't fret... your data will last 100 years - yeah didn't I say 100 years? - if you burn it to Panasonic's 100GB Blu-ray discs!

i_XpUser

Any and all media is suseptible to degredation. Hard drives are mechanical devices and can fail at any given time. Recordable media is device independant (i.e. if you DVD drive fails you can get another one to read your burned media).

As alluded to before, it's longevity is not well known. The truth is some media can deteriorate in as little as two years. We do not know the other end of the scale. But, tests have shown that some disks *can* last 100 years or more. The most importanct factor is the quality of the media. Don't use cheap discs for archival purposes.

http://www.audioholics.com/techtips...

Archival backups is something I have been looking at for some time (music, family photos & video). At one time I was looking at created spanned sets of DVD's with parity data. Then if a disc or two became corrupt I could rebuild the data with the remaining data disks from the set and the parity data.

The problem with that solution is that each set would have a minimum of about 13GB. So, after I do the initial backup i would need 13GB of new data before being able to create a new set. Not practical.

So my current process is to backup the data to a 2nd hard drive for short term storage. Once I have a DVDs worth of data I burn it to two DVDs. One I keep locally, the other I mail to a family member across the country.

Michael J

Hi Michael

I'd like to suggest that you read this article, particularly with respect to the new disc burning technology recently developed by Panasonic. This process is totally new to me.

i_XpUser

Why would you suggest technology that doesn't exist yet?

So that you know what will be available to you sooner than you think.

The "release to manufacture" timeframe is getting shorter and shorter in interest of competition to be on the cutting edge.

i_XpUser

Thanks for the link. They said the same thing about DVDs when they were being introduced. But, as that story states:

"Outside of the perfect lab environment, which only tests the effects of humidity and temperature on discs over time, Panasonic's so-called "100-year durability" discs may in fact not last quite so long."

I don't expect to use ANY type of medium for 100 years. Because storage needs increase over time and as the article also states "Even if they do last that long, here's hoping for anyone who burns important data to one of these there will be Blu-ray drives available to read them 100 years from now."

I only want the data to last as long as the time when the media the data is stored on is no longer viable - at which time I would copy it to the newest media format.

As the current rate of development this is not an issue. Once my DVDs would possibly be at an age when I would need to worry about this, Blue-Ray and/or HD-DVD should be mainstream and i would be able to copy 25 or more DVDs onto one new disk.

But, I would still always want to have at least two sets for any important data. Only having one copy of any data in one format/place is risking losing that data forever.

Michael J

Even if hypothetically the media survives that long - chances are the devices with which to read them will have been long abandoned before that time.

IMHO, all that the need for infinite data integrity creates is nothing but an illusion of importance. Unfortunately these days, this is continously fed by the ever dropping cost of storage space.

"IMHO, all that the need for infinite data integrity creates is nothing but an illusion of importance. Unfortunately these days, this is continously fed by the ever dropping cost of storage space."

Do your or your family not have photos and videos that you would consider priceless?

Michael J

Man are mortals - so nothing is really priceless. I am also not ignorant of the concept behind photography, photos are memorable but until the day one can literally relive the captured moment, they are just sentimental still & moving pieces, and now courtesy of Photoshop and other programs, your imagination is about the only thing that stands between any digital creation.

A very insightful point there about the irony of limitless storage and delusional importance, Sabertooth.

And besides, if there are photos that are truly priceless to you, chances are you a) have them framed/in photo albums where they'll last many years if properly taken care of, or b) look at them all the time, whereby they are ready for easy-access and can be backed up inumerable times.

I wish my lawn was emo so it would cut itself.

Sorry, I look at it a little differently. I look at photos amd such as historical items. Printed photos fade over time. With digital copies you an make a new print at any time w/o quality loss.

Photoshop is not a replacement any more than a portrait was previously.

"have them framed/in photo albums where they'll last many years if properly taken care of,"

With that kind of thinking, I guess we should just shut down the forums then and start some kind of mass chain letter to ask/answer questions.

To each his own. Each person will place the value they see fit in the items they possess.

Michael J

"With that kind of thinking, I guess we should just shut down the forums then and start some kind of mass chain letter to ask/answer questions.

To each his own. Each person will place the value they see fit in the items they possess."

I wasn't slamming his way of preserving memories, I was just saying a basic truth that a picture in a frame is much more permanent that a .jpg on a hard drive, no matter which way you slice it.

I wish my lawn was emo so it would cut itself.

Which is the exact point of trying to find a good archival method for digital assets. There's no reason a digital photo shouldn't last as long, even longer, than a printed photo.

For the same reason people use specially coated backing materials for framed pictures to make them last longer I want to find the best method for preserving the files that are important to me.

Michael J

But why go to all the trouble backing up all your photos, videos etc. digitally for long-term purposes? Storage media and formats are going to become obsolete eventually. Who knows? Maybe in 10 years .jpg's will no longer be supported. We might not even have operating systems!

MS seems to have no problem phasing out old/outmoded technology and formats. But physical photos don't become obsolete.

I wish my lawn was emo so it would cut itself.

As technology changes you can easily migrate/convert your data. I still have files of tax returns, projects, etc. That were originally stored on floppies. But, when CD's became the norm I migrated the data to those.

When any format becomes obsolete there is always a transition period. And tehre is always some method of converting the old format to the new. It's no different then the process of converting home videos to DVD format.

Michael J

But eventually (decades down the road) nobody will even use .txts or .docs or .jpgs, so unless you're very careful and backup during every instance that new technology is released, you will lose things.

Look at punch-cards. They were used heavily up until even the early 80s. Do you see a punchcard-to-DVD converter anywhere? Of course not, and EVERY storage media, no matter how durable, will go the same route as the punchcard.

That is the point that I am trying to make. Digital assets simply will not outlive hard copies of information, such as documents or pictures, because the methods of "reading" and "writing" them, by nature, cannot become obsolete.

Also, corruption between conversions is inevitable. How many times can you convert even an audio file from one compression format to the other before it barely resembles the original? And that is only during a span of a few years. Over decades? Good luck.

I wish my lawn was emo so it would cut itself.

"Do you see a punchcard-to-DVD converter anywhere?"

Punchcards are digital? News to me.

"Also, corruption between conversions is inevitable. How many times can you convert even an audio file from one compression format to the other before it barely resembles the original?"

If you are converting from a lossy compression method to another lossy compression method that's true, but you can always convert to a lossless format in which case there is no loss of quality. For many file types they are not compressed.

So, just out of curiosity, how would you keep your family videos for posterity if not in digiatal format?

Michael J

Eight years, three days, fourteen hours, two minutes, thirty six and a half seconds, plus or minus.

I wouldn't assume more than that would be of any use.

I would just recommend using a writable disc only. Do not use re-write discs for important storage as they are more prone to data corruption, especially with regard to temperature increase.

I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book. - Groucho Marx