Comment by erickhill | Hacker News Reader

Comment by erickhill | Hacker News Reader

I bought one of these years ago when my 2015 Macbook Pro was still my primary computer, which I used until the M1 Max was released. However, the thing sat on a shelf unused. I still have DVDs and CD-ROMs in the house with what I consider to be important data/files, or movies you simply can't stream, but life always got in the way.

Last weekend, with the wife away on a trip, I pulled a DVD I'd been given last year after the death of a relative. It was filled with movie files an uncle had recorded when he'd visited during the birth of my first child 17 years ago. Since the SuperDrive is USB-A, I pulled out my old 2015 MBP (still a great machine) and popped in the disk. After a few moments I was looking at AVI clips that felt as if I had stepped through time. Seeing relatives now gone, other relatives so young - all of us were. And my daughter, just a couple days old looking like a sleeping grub worm in a blanket.

After that experience I moved everything to cloud storage and started looking for more discs. Makes me think I should get a Mac Mini and use the SuperDrive as an old-school video/audio media machine.

This dongle won't provide enough power for the drive on a modern MBP:

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MW5L3AM/A/usb-c-to-usb-ad...

This dongle will provide enough power:

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MW5M3AM/A/usb-c-digital-a...

$70 is a lot for a dongle, but a lot cheaper than a whole new computer.

But not a lot cheaper than a USB BD-R drive without captive cable that doesn't require either dongle.

Yes, very true. Although if you go this route you’d better look at the specs closely. Amazon is filled with drives that run USB 2.0 speeds over a USB-C cable.

If the dvd/cds you burned have any important data, best to pull that off, because those discs degrade over time, and fairly quickly than you may expect. Get a good usb drive and put that in a firesafe.

Doesn't flash storage need to be plugged in occasionally, or else it suffers data loss from the cell charges dissipating?

I thought a mechanical hard drive was the go-to consumer-level way to backup long-term (tapes being higher but harder).

Something like once every ten years

I've had flash drives go bad after months or even weeks so I'm dubious about your ten years claim. Probably depends on the type of flash chip, quality, etc but still overall worse than the alternatives.

high quality is the key 2023: https://www.pcworld.com/article/2037550/how-long-does-data-l....

So a physical hard drive is better long term archival storage than SDD?

Depends on what you're going against, I'd wager.

Mechanical HDDs are far more shock sensitive. One good drop and the bits are physically damaged by the head hitting the platter.

If you move often perhaps USB SSDs are better. A little more rugged and accessible, with occasional power as the trade-off.

The cell powering is overstated. I just wouldn't expect to go a really long time on your only drive. Have many/play the odds. Reading the data occasionally to verify sums would suffice to recharge. So could appending to the archive!

Tape is great for density and shock sensitivity, but doesn't handle magnetism or moisture as well. Random access is awful, so recovering from this may be as well. This really shines in terms of density.

All this to say, I wouldn't store data I cared about in a hard to access or irregular place.

Not all the same place, but readily accessible such that restoring, maintenance, or establishing quorum is feasible. A safe deposit box sounds nice, is wildly impractical.

The houses of friends or family are just as effective, or misc. S3 providers. Many is best, in short. Not just one.

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