There never has been and there never will be a digital recording format that lasts forever. – David Pogue – CBS Sunday Morning
A couple of recent events have reminded me of the precariousness of our digital data. One was the moment I stepped on a PhotoCD (remember those?). It was a real one, not Kodak’s Picture CD or a Fujicolor CD, a real honest to goodness PhotoCD. But even if I hadn’t stepped on it, by all accounts its life expectancy was up, particularly in the manner that it was being stored.
Optical disks are no good for long-term storage despite the fact that we’re all using them for long-term storage, and its not just the medium, which is about as forgiving as I am with regard to heat and humidity, its the digital format. And its not just the medium and the format, its museums. I was looking at LOC’s Digital Preservation site and their partners. Now I know the Library of Congress is a library, so you would expect there to be lots of libraries – there are, but where are the museums?
That’s a whole other blog entry. We should all know by now that optical disks are no good for long term storage because they’re susceptible to heat, humidity and pressure:
 Does your disk look like this? |
 or this? |
 or this? |
From Millenniata’s Current Problems with Digital Storage.
The susceptibility of the medium is in large part due to the organic dye layer that goes into manufacturing CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs, even gold disks. Its that word organic that is the problem since as we all know, we make things out of organic material so that they degrade. Everything’s biodegradable these days, even your credit – if its with Discover. Actually that would be your credit card which is probably made out of the same organic dye that your DVD-ROM with those really important files on it is made out of.
Bitrot or datarot is what we’re talking about as explained by David Pogue reporting for CBS Sunday Morning:
Compare the shortevity of our DVDs with the longevity of this technique of storing data in rock substrate: Noah’s Ark was circular raft made of reeds, according to ancient tablet. Three and a half thousand years and counting, now that’s preservation…
Sometimes the old ways are the best. Compare the shortevity of our DVDs with the longevity of this other technique of storing data in rock substrate: The Millennial Disc™ Series from Millenniata. (I love their play on the old WORM acronym, Write Once Read Forever™.) Rather than use an organic substrate, they use a rock-based substrate for their optical disk medium which etches into the rock, pretty much like that ancient tablet. The discs are backward compatible, i.e. any DVD reader can read them, you’ll just need a more powerful writer to etch that rock.
Ok, so do we have the medium issue resolved?… Now let’s talk about the format: Cuneiform-encoded images anyone?
While we’re on the subject of etching important data onto stone tablets, I recommend Ricky Gervais’ Invention of Lying. Pizza boxes… ’nuff said.
