Write once, read forever, backup media advice

[Halcyon]

People often joke about paper or engraved stone as long term means of storage, but for multiple gigabyes this is a non-starter.

In all seriousness, it's not a terrible idea for small amounts of data, but yes, Gigabytes are probably out of the question. This is an interesting project: https://ollydbg.de/Paperbak/

Depending on how compressible your data is, you can store up to 3 MB on a standard A4 sheet of paper.

[BrianHG]

I would also add SLC flash drives, if you cannot find them, then at least try to find MLC and refresh them every decade or so.  Stay away from TLC and up.

I just found out there is a tool to modify the firmware of some TLC/QLC drives which forces them to run their flash ram exclusively in SLC mode.  Though, the drive becomes 1/3 or 1/4 the size.  But is you want more secure archiving, it is a way around the fact you cannot buy SLC drives anymore.

See here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/does-anyone-make-good-ssds-any-more/msg5610277/#msg5610277

[PlainName]

This is an interesting project: https://ollydbg.de/Paperbak/

Neat!

Tried it, and... long story short, I printed to PDF then saved as PNG then converted to BMP. Apps says file format isn't supported, so perhaps modern BMP is not the BMP Windows used to love. In which case even this scheme wouldn't help to preserve data much longer than the OS it runs on.

[Halcyon]

This is an interesting project: https://ollydbg.de/Paperbak/

Neat!

Tried it, and... long story short, I printed to PDF then saved as PNG then converted to BMP. Apps says file format isn't supported, so perhaps modern BMP is not the BMP Windows used to love. In which case even this scheme wouldn't help to preserve data much longer than the OS it runs on.

Possibly, but at least image formats can be converted.

[nctnico]

and again I'm not sure if good Linux compatiible blu-ray burners exist.

LG ones seem to work fine on Linux, at least the internal, SATA.

Does blu-ray still exist? 

Uh, of course.

Interesting. I thought these had died out years ago. Personally I never had a blu-ray disk in my hands. Either way, the removable optical media all suffer from the same problem: limited life span of the drives. Even in the era of CD-ROMs this was already a problem. A CD-ROM player would only work for a couple of years and then it needed replacing. I tried many different brands but they all had problems after several years.

[BrianHG]

With a 2400dpi film writer, you can print on rolls of film a gigantic QR code holding approximately 0.5 megabits of data for every 8.5x11inch page.  Note that on the old AGFA imagesetter film writer my friend had, it could print 22 inches wide by a continuous roll for a large number of feet.  (Minor improvements will need to be made to the QR standard to operate with such huge image sizes.)

This means a QR code 22 inches wide, (minus safety margins, and upgrading to 3000dpi later models of the 2002 era), every foot printed will contain 2Gigabits of data, or 256 megabytes of data.  This means 1 gigabyte for every 4 feet printed.  Since the film is loaded in the imagesetters in a huge roll, something like an old scroll, you would need a film 22 inches wide, 400 feet long for 100 gigabytes of permanent storage.
(LOL, a literal 100 gigabyte Torah...)

You just need to have a good scanner to scan in the 22 inch wide film roll.

(Example old AGFA imagesetter film printers, some working up to 3000dpi: https://www.exapro.com/sp/agfa-phoenix2250-5699/, note that since it is film, you do need the developer machine and the developing chemicals.  But yes, the output is B&W film written by a laser, just like the film in your 35mm camera, just monochrome and 22 inches wide.)

Example windows software app encoded into a QR Barcode, IE, you can make QR code any size you like, even holding computer software.

[RoGeorge]

There was a Romanian from the Institute of Atomic Physics at Magurele during the 90's or so, and he invented a many, many layers CD-like technology.  The disk was the diameter of a CD, and about 1 cm thick (0.3inch or so), he did some demos with a prototype reader unit, and did some presentations to attract investors.  Later he went to USA and sold the invention to some big corporation, Sony or Philips or such, don't recall the details very well.

That technology was never mass produced, though since then, once each couple of years the tech news announce a petabyte optical disk was invented, like for example this one:  https://www.livescience.com/technology/electronics/new-petabit-scale-optical-disc-can-store-as-much-information-as-15000-dvds

[BrianHG]

If you wan fire-proof and water-proof ~100gb storage on a ~4 inch square or glass, look at this technology which  uses lasers to etch data into the middle of a square of ordinary glass which is designed to retain the data for 'thousands of years' unlike the cheap plastic, magnetic or electronic media we are used to:

https://variety.com/2019/film/news/project-silica-superman-warner-bros-microsoft-1203390459/

This tech should fit the OP's needs quite nicely.

[jonovid]

A history lesson in history its self-
a more realistic way is to use data disks made of brass or ceramics to a new proprietary standard with an emphasis on longevity & durability not compactness or ease of use.
so plastics would be avoided or anything that would decay or undergo decomposition over time.
so for example this new data standard would use data disks made from pottery ceramics. that in theory can last thousands of years.
putting data into a ceramic coating on a ceramic or pottery disc.
the size circumference & thickness of any ceramic data disk would be a compromise between saving space & maintaining durability when handled with care.
so saving total data integrity. one aspect of this is the disc playback device. that must be reconstructed from engineering plans also in ceramic tablet not paper.
as this is disc playback device would not be expected to survive the passage of time.
regrettably most of recent history going back the last 30 years could disappear with a catastrophic event. destroying the worlds data centers.
even simple economics can destroy digital history. so for example saving space at a data center for new data. replacing old hard disk drives.
at the end of the day when all is said and done IMO.  text & images fired on ceramic tablets that can be visible to the naked eye.
& also stored in an underground cave will be expected to survive the passage of time.
 
I love electronics but do not expect it as we know it today, to survive the end of today's modern civilization.
so for example in the last 30 years I have seen the loss of knowledge & skills that was once commonplace . the decay of common knowledge if you like.
we as a civilization are building a digital pyramid but we no longer comprehend how the foundation was laid. we built this code on top of old code.
with ever increasing in coding complexity like a spiral curve towards the centre. life gets too complicated going beyond human comprehension.
at this point any catastrophic event can snuff out this pyramid of digital knowledge we call the internet.  the Alexandria of our time. 
then no one understands how to fix it or decrypt it. large parts of the internet may become bricked when a software engineering greybeard dies
particularly if the internet AI can nolonger repair its self.
and so preserving digital knowledge beyond one's life time is a challenge.

[MT]

People often joke about paper or engraved stone as long term means of storage, but for multiple gigabyes this is a non-starter.

In all seriousness, it's not a terrible idea for small amounts of data, but yes, Gigabytes are probably out of the question. This is an interesting project: https://ollydbg.de/Paperbak/
Depending on how compressible your data is, you can store up to 3 MB on a standard A4 sheet of paper.

Cuneiform clay tablets is the forerunner, grand dad of all "pressed" media oldest so far is from Gudea of Lagash, Sumer 2144-2124 B.C. Central Iraq.
So a blue ray encoded clay disk which then burned into a ceramic and eventually glased for additional surface protection.
Statue of Gudea I, dedicated to the god Ningishzida; 2120 BC with datat printed on his lap, base material Diorite.

 

[PlainName]

text & images fired on ceramic tablets that can be visible to the naked eye.
& also stored in an underground cave will be expected to survive the passage of time

But still has the problem of acquiring a working scanner and appropriate drivers. The human eye just sees stuff, but the brain has to interpret what the eye sees, and if it's not in a language that is current then it may well be meaningless and effectively unreadable. The only reason we understand hieroglyphs and the like from ancient Egypt is because of clever people spending a long time decoding the stuff. For mere mortals it is write-only media, even if it lasts forever.

[RoGeorge]

Writing 20-100 GB in cuneiform tablets, though, might take longer than 100 years. 

[MT]

Writing 20-100 GB in cuneiform tablets, though, might take longer than 100 years. 

Not if its tiny, like the Chinese symbols can have 10 different meanings.

[SiliconWizard]

and again I'm not sure if good Linux compatiible blu-ray burners exist.

LG ones seem to work fine on Linux, at least the internal, SATA.

Does blu-ray still exist? 

Uh, of course.

Interesting. I thought these had died out years ago. Personally I never had a blu-ray disk in my hands. Either way, the removable optical media all suffer from the same problem: limited life span of the drives. Even in the era of CD-ROMs this was already a problem. A CD-ROM player would only work for a couple of years and then it needed replacing. I tried many different brands but they all had problems after several years.

Never had this problem. I still have a Plextor DVD drive/writer which works fine.

But I admit I never actually bought a Bluray drive. I had one indirectly in my PS4, that's all.

Sure these days with cheap external HDDs/SSDs and cloud services (and fast Internet access), the market for writable optical media has shrunk considerably. Still, I was also looking for a long-term archival media and optical still looks attractive, at least with M-DISC which looked promising. Haven't tested that yet though, and the company behind that disappeared (which triggered caution). Not sure what the deal is exactly now. I think Verbatim bought the technology, but it looks like nobody can really tell if Verbatim M-DISC is really as good as the original stuff.

I think there's still a case (even if maybe limited) for long-term archival that would be purely passive (not requiring any maintenance / power / data replication / etc).

[nctnico]

The primary problems with off-line / passive storage are 1) vendor lock-in and 2) hardware not being upgraded to the latest technology & OS support while staying backward compatible with existing media. Over the years I have had a whole bunch of off-line systems through my hands and none really stood the test of time. Hardware and media became obsolete for every system.

[BrianHG]

This is all BS.
Just buy a pile of eproms and burn them with redundant checksum.
I have eproms from the early 80s and they are all fine.
Just make sure you over-burn each cell to get that extra endurance.

In 100 years, even if you cannot find an eprom reader as historical hardware enthusiasts will still have a few for rejuvenating vintage technology, it is easy enough to build your own eprom reader assuming we still use electricity to drive IOs in electronics in one form or another.

How difficult is individual address wires tied to a binary counter, and reading 8bit parallel data.

[PlainName]

Microchip do 8Mb EPROM, so for 100GB you'd need 1000 of them at £8 ($10) a throw in quantity. Need 25A to power them, but I guess you could arrange to do them in blocks to reduce that kind of requirement.

[iMo]

..up to 1TB printed on an A4 double side

[BrianHG]

Microchip do 8Mb EPROM, so for 100GB you'd need 1000 of them at £8 ($10) a throw in quantity. Need 25A to power them, but I guess you could arrange to do them in blocks to reduce that kind of requirement.

At 3.3v, that's only ~100 watts.  I do not think it will be a problem.
Though, doesn't each one have a CE power-down state secondary to the output enable?  That should cut down the current requirements at the expense of waiting the extra 100 or so nanoseconds as you enable a row/section...

[Haenk]

I'd say: Define your budget. If you are running on a "100 Bucks" budget, even thinking about a hardware-solution it is pointless.

For low budget, I'd go with DVD-RAM or DVD-R - create multiple copies of your archive on different branded media, re-check every 5 years and create more sets. Store safely at different locations (cold, non-condensing, dark - maybe in a sealed metal-coated bag with drying bags).
That should be cheap, and would require only a bit of effort once every couple of years.
As I have plenty of 25 year old burnt CD-R, I would expect the lifespan of your backup in case of not being refreshed about the same timeframe; remember that there will be multiple copies availabe, which will reduce chance of a total loss even more.

Of course you could go with higher density discs like M-Disc, but that might be a problem, if the reading devices are no longer available (go find one in your town); you likely won't have a problem to find a DVD reader.

[nctnico]

Still, if you take a step back and first define what kind of data needs to be stored. The OP never specified that. History has proven that texts and drawings on high quality paper can last for hundreds of years. And realistically, what kind of information is actually worth keeping? Public information like movies, books, records, etc are stored elsewhere already. So what is left are personal pictures, movies and texts. Pictures and text can be printed on high quality paper, digital movies can be converted into a film format used professionally. Both will last forever.

For example, I have a book with illustrated stories made by my great-great-great grandfather nearly 100 years ago. The colors of the illustrations are as vivid like it was drawn yesterday.

[PlainName]

History has proven that texts and drawings on high quality paper can last for hundreds of years.

Yes, they can be. But, equally, they can last half an hour in the wrong circumstance. Also, we only know of the ones that made it, never the ones that didn't (observer bias).

Public information like movies, books, records, etc are stored elsewhere already.

And likely to disappear on a whim. There are LOADS of films and books you can no longer access.

first define what kind of data needs to be stored

Indeed, that would help enormously, even if only to open another rabbit hole

[nctnico]

History has proven that texts and drawings on high quality paper can last for hundreds of years.

Yes, they can be. But, equally, they can last half an hour in the wrong circumstance. Also, we only know of the ones that made it, never the ones that didn't (observer bias).

True. But if you put a USB stick, a optical disk, an EPROM and a piece of paper in a safe, I'm pretty sure the thing that remains readable after 100 years is the piece of paper. The rest needs effort and knowledge that might no longer exist IF (big if) the medium hasn't degraded.

[David Hess]

History has proven that texts and drawings on high quality paper can last for hundreds of years.

Yes, they can be. But, equally, they can last half an hour in the wrong circumstance. Also, we only know of the ones that made it, never the ones that didn't (observer bias).

True. But if you put a USB stick, a optical disk, an EPROM and a piece of paper in a safe, I'm pretty sure the thing that remains readable after 100 years is the piece of paper. The rest needs effort and knowledge that might no longer exist IF (big if) the medium hasn't degraded.

The EPROM, optical disk if not organic dye based, and paper will still be readable.  The USB stick, or any current Flash based media, will be toast.  Based on my tests a couple years ago, I would consider it lucky if a USB stick lasted more than a year.

[PlainName]

Why are USB sticks so dodgy compared to, say, SDcards or SSDs?