Hey geminauts... I'm wondering which mediums are optimum for digital archiving and preservation. What format would you use and why?
1 year ago
@smokey Ahh I heard of that 5D storage thing years back, didn't realize it's been developed this far in now. TBH tho "superman memory crystals" sounds like smth I'd hear from some1 outside a 711 lol. Seems very promising, tho idk how affordable it is. 路 1 year ago
The most interesting and cutting edge thing Ive seen is something called (and I kid you not) "Superman memory crystals" Which are able to store 360TB worth of data and as a storage medium last billions of years. Read more about it here: gemini://gemi.dev/cgi-bin/wp.cgi/view?5D+optical+data+storage 路 1 year ago
Depends on how much data you have and how long you need to preserve it. M-Discs will likely have the longest "shelf life," but are also the most expensive per gigabyte. LTO tapes are next for shelf life, but the up-front costs mean it takes a lot of data before they're competitive. HDDs, external or internal, can also be had for a reasonable price per terabyte. I personally use external HDDs to backup my 30TB media server.
I would not use flash-based memory for storing data on a shelf. It needs electricity to maintain its state long-term. 路 1 year ago
Just take one giant screen shot of every gemini page in one. 路 1 year ago
@astromech hmm I see. In that case, if you're going all digital, I'd say do the following: get a series of those BD MDiscs, depending on how much you're tryna do. Get a series of Terabyte+ External HDD's and RISCs and keep a series of backups of each instance(s). Finally, and this makes it all really costly, but maybe consider investing in a series of NAS's and keep them locally linked. You'd have to explore a variety of options if you really wanna archive a large amount of data for long-term. That's not even bringing up the room and environment conditions to keep all that in so that you can keep their longevity as far as you can. 路 1 year ago
@superfxchip Good stuff. I found these supposedly durable optical discs gemini://vault.transjovian.org/full/en/M-DISC 路 1 year ago
Now that that's outta the way, let's talk about the inverse: for digital video into physical, if you can then BD-R if you wanna stay digital and need a large amount (hell, even images and audio). If you're going into analog, VHS should do. Make sure you have multiple stock. Audio, Chrome or Metal cassetes are good at C90, or reel to reel tracked at high frequency response from your DAC/interface if you got the resources for it lol. Images, a print onto matte photo paper is fine if you got the printer for it. Documents, A4 or letter paper should be good. 路 1 year ago
@superfxchip SSDs go bad eventually right? What is a physical medium that lasts longer? 路 1 year ago
@krixano Storing digital data on physical mediums is what I mean! Sorry for not being clearer 路 1 year ago
@smokey Just use AI vision to read data? :P 路 1 year ago
Ok, now, for a little detail: like krixano asks, if you ARE talking about physical to digital, then you gotta elaborate what you mean. If it's a video transfer, go for MP4 H264 should be fine enough with a high frequency and bit rate . Images, a scan into PNG should do well. Documents, do PDF at 300dpi. Music/audio, aux line via interface or DAC pre-amp from whatever analog source (vinyl/cassette/etc) and track at high frequency and bit rate into a DAW and export as a FLAC or OGG (depending on lossless or lossy). 路 1 year ago
if you mean file format, any zip, rar, gz or 7z should do. if you mean a physical digital format, then external SSD would be the move, right? 路 1 year ago
Do you mean like archiving physical papers and images onto the computer, or the opposite way (archiving digital information on physical media)? 路 1 year ago
Personally I inscribe the binaries of all my important files into clay tablets and store them in a cave but thats just me 路 1 year ago