Ask HN: Best Long(ish)-Term Storage Format? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Best Long(ish)-Term Storage Format?

2 pointsYawrehto5 comments

Basically, I've been thinking of storing more things physically, thanks to *gestures vaguely*. But I don't know which format to use given my criteria. In rough order of importance:

1. Reasonably easy to store and durable. So not something that demands specific criteria like being stored in very cold or hot temperatures, or that's super fragile. I don't expect it to be able to withstand a bomb being dropped on it, but I'd appreciate not needing to worry about it getting dusty or hot or cold or wet or accidentally knocked off a shelf or getting too close to a magnet or whatever. (Obviously that's a hard set of things to be completely proofed to.)

2. Able to be forgotten about. I know me and know the odds I'll forget about it for a while at some point are fairly high. I don't expect it to last for 1,000 years and be just as good as it was originally, but something that decays if it's not used wouldn't be ideal (but I'd take it if needed).

3. Cheap. Obviously. It doesn't need to be as cheap as the random stuff you get on Amazon (the first result for USB flash drive is 9 cents a gigabyte), but it shouldn't be super expensive.

4. Widely available/supported (and likely to be supported for a while). So not floppy disks or DNA storage.

I'm not planning on storing things for 1000 years or anything like that, so it's fine if it decays slowly, but it should be resilient for a while--over a decade at least.

I'm aware those are kind of conflicting, but I wanted advice on what you think would work best.

The first rule is to follow 3-2-1. Keep 3 copies on at least 2 media formats with at least 1 copy in a different geographic location.

HDD drives, SSD drives, and flash drives are out, because you have to keep checking file integrity at some cadence and then replacing disks every 5 years anyway or whenever you decide is right. Unless you want to maintain disk arrays as a hobby, that seems out. Tape backups are out too, for similar reasons, because doing that right too becomes a time-consuming and expensive hobby quite rapidly.

So, best as I can tell, that leaves us with:

- Print any important text. File this in labeled 3-ring binders in boxes or on shelves, or put the paper in labeled hanging folders in file cabinet drawers. Use whisper to convert audio or video to text transcripts before printing, if needed.

- For multimedia or software files, burn them to 25GB Blu-ray M-Disc media (or pick another capacity if better for your needs), and store these in the most moderate/stable environment you can easily provide with respect to temperature, humidity, and vibration.

If you want to pay continual fees and rely on someone else to rotate disks, you could throw a copy on Backblaze or Amazon Glacier or Wasabi or whatever, but personally I wouldn't necessarily count on that because to me clouds seem like they could evaporate accidentally, YMMV.

Paper or (overkill for only requiring a decade of storage) clay tablets

Or does “the first result for USB flash drive is 9 cents a gigabyte” point at an unmentioned requirement of how much data you intend to store?

Writable optical media may or may not last 10+ years. Solid state drives seem to check all your storage requirements, but it's unclear (to me) how reliably they store data that long.

I've had good luck with hard drives, but I've never knocked one off a shelf, nor do I have any strong magnetic fields in my house like you seem to. I keep them in my basement, one in a lockbox.

M-disk? That's meant to last 10+ years…

I don't have strong magnetic fields in my house (as far as I know...) but I am the bad combination of clumsy, anxious and forgetful. They're not a big worry for me either (I don't plan on sticking them to the fridge). But

Reply on news.ycombinator.com