Text 9047, 80 rader
Skriven 2006-01-11 20:49:40 av Antti Kurenniemi (1:379/45)
Ärende: Re: Lifespan of burned CDs
==================================
From: "Antti Kurenniemi" <NOantti@SPAManttikPLEASE.com>

Say what you want, but I just absolutely hate tape backups. Sure, the tape may
well work perfectly, but there's only about oh two or three bazillion different
types, and you can find functioning readers for every single one except the one
type you need. Right now I have a tape on my desk that I'm having a hard time
finding a drive for - the customer has a functioning drive, but they want to
find someone who can read the tape if their server totally blows up, which is a
smart thing to think ahead of. Trouble seems to be, that someone has sold them
a whoppingly overpriced drive, which no-one else has. Hoo-wee, this is fun.


Antti Kurenniemi
(It's HP Ultrium LTO2, with 400G capacity per tape - they're backing about 200M
a week, and have 20 tapes...)

"Rich Gauszka" <gauszka@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:43c512f5@w3.nls.net...
>I have a hard time with  tape being the more viable as a backup medium as
>stated in the article. I thought tape suffered 'print through' which
>affected it as a long tern solution. Being burnt by far too many tape
>backups in my career in IT obviously skews my views on tape as a reliable
>backup medium
>
> http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,124312,00.asp
>
> Opinions vary on how to preserve data on digital storage media, such as
> optical CDs and DVDs. Kurt Gerecke, a physicist and storage expert at IBM
> Deutschland, has his own view: If you want to avoid having to burn new CDs
> every few years, use magnetic tapes to store all your pictures, videos and
> songs for a lifetime.
>
> "Unlike pressed original CDs, burned CDs have a relatively short life span
> of between two to five years, depending on the quality of the CD," Gerecke
> says. "There are a few things you can do to extend the life of a burned
> CD, like keeping the disc in a cool, dark space, but not a whole lot
> more."
>
> The problem is material degradation. Optical discs commonly used for
> burning, such as CD-R and CD-RW, have a recording surface consisting of a
> layer of dye that can be modified by heat to store data. The degradation
> process can result in the data "shifting" on the surface and thus becoming
> unreadable to the laser beam.
>
> "Many of the cheap burnable CDs available at discount stores have a life
> span of around two years," Gerecke says. "Some of the better-quality discs
> offer a longer life span, of a maximum of five years."
>
> Distinguishing high-quality burnable CDs from low-quality discs is
> difficult, he says, because few vendors use life span as a selling point.
>
>
> Similar Limitations
> Hard-drive disks also have their limitations, according to Gerecke. The
> problem with hard drives, he says, is not so much the disk itself as it is
> the disk bearing, which has a positioning function similar to a ball
> bearing. "If the hard drive uses an inexpensive disk bearing, that bearing
> will wear out faster than a more expensive one," he says. His
> recommendation: a hard-drive disk with 7200 revolutions per minute.
>
> To overcome the preservation limitations of burnable CDs, Gerecke suggests
> using magnetic tapes, which, he claims, can have a life span of 30 years
> to 100 years, depending on their quality. "Even if magnetic tapes are also
> subject to degradation, they're still the superior storage media," he
> says.
>
> But he's quick to point out that no storage medium lasts forever and,
> consequently, consumers and business alike need to have a migration plan
> to new storage technologies.
>
> "Companies, in particular, need to be constantly looking at new storage
> technologies and have an archiving strategy that allows them to
> automatically migrate to new technologies," he says. "Otherwise, they're
> going to wind up in a dead-end. And for those sitting on terabytes of
> crucial data, that could be a colossal problem."
>
>

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