Damm computers,
Thought I'd check my archive collection to see if I had a 9835 counter manual, dug out CD-ROM stuck it in drive, no CD-ROM icon in my pc (WIN 10 on a Tosh laptop).
Hour an a half later, finally fixed. Win 10 update incompatable with Tosh optical drive service
An no I don't have the Racal manual
I've not completely left optical drives behind, but I try to boot from USB pendrives when I can, to avoid burning a coaster. As to storage, everything digital I care for is on spinning rust, with out-of-country backup nightly. I'm thinking of getting a Dropbox account upgrade to shovel backups into. Let's see where "unlimited" ends ...
I don't have a single optical drive in the house now.
My backups are: mac -> { iCloud, local unencrypted offline USB/Samsung 870 via Time machine, local encrypted USB stick via Time Machine }
Joys of only having 90 gig of stuff I give a shit about . Decided data hoarding wasn't productive and just cost time and money so I went on a delete-a-thon.
I'm the opposite, I archive any data I find on the WWW. Too many times a manual or datasheet that was there just disappears. For companies a take over or website make-over are common causes, others re site owner looses interest, dosn't pay host fees, dies or in one particular case got fed up with people selling his data he just closed down a huge archive. I have multiple optical back-ups some fixed magnetic disks locally and some stuf on sticks. I have a number of isssues with "cloud" storage. Main one is availablity if internet connectivity is down you are stuffed. Provide can decide to charge you a lot more or just quit. There is also security issues. I don't see any real alternative to optical storag for sometng that generally does not go faulty, consumes no power, is write once so you or someone else cant overwrite data and is cheap.
Personally I think we are creating a new dark age. more nd more data in less and less permanent storage.
Verified data is important. Before the WWW I was able to do so much more than others because I aquired (mostly with my own money) data, application and reference books.
OEM books, DATA, ICMaster, TITS, Janes etc, etc. I still have the first TTL data book I bought back in the seventies, special order from the USA. I also have a Janes Avionics that cost over £300 in the late eighties but the data in it got me a couple of lucrative contract jobs. It still has use as some of the systems described are now considered ITAR so nothing on the web about them. About 10 years ago Rockwell collins went through their website removing virtually all of the detailled equipment datasheets because of ITAR concerns.
There seems to be less and less verifiable data on the WWW but more and more rubbish, opinions, multiple copes of the same (often dubious) source, click-bait and scams.