Whats the best way to take backup? | Hacker News Reader

Whats the best way to take backup?

I was thinking of taking backup of various videos and pictures of my new born daughter and storing it in a external USB harddisk or probably in time capsule. But what is the guaranty they will still be supported after 20-25 years when we actually need it? Just the way floppy disks and various other storage devices are dead today USB or timecapsule may be dead soon. What is the best way to take backup of those precious moments then? Have you faced similar situation? or am I thinking too out of the box?

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No-one really has a good solution to this at the moment. One thing you can't do is try to do this passively, i.e. by making one and then stashing it somewhere. You need to keep it online, back it up regularly with the rest of your data (I use a 1T Apple Time Capsule for my first-stage backups) and just keep migrating forwards as you upgrade to larger storage solutions. This does mean some ongoing work on your part, and it rests on the assumption that someone will have created a truly permanent storage media before you die (or that you train your kids to keep on doing it).

There are two easily available media that are known to endure with no active involvement if stored correctly, and will always be accessible no matter what the prevailing technological environment: B&W film and acid-free paper. Everything else is up in the air at the moment.

I see your point here. Upgradation to new backup devices is a solution for now. Thanks.

I would say you are thinking about it a bit too much. If you are really concerned about future support, store it on two or more types of media (flash, DVD, etc) and then it is more likely to be retrievable.

I've found that optical media like CD-Rs and DVD-Rs corrode over time. Many of the CD-Rs I burned over the last 7 years are unreadable now. Different media seems to degrade at different speeds. Beware of burning a DVD, storing it away for 10 years and trying to read it then.

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