Comment on If I wanted to bury a hard drive for archival purposes (e.g. Country becoming Dictatorship), how to keep the contents from being damaged and where is the safest place to bury it?

JackbyDev@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

• mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Flash isn’t a good long-term storage option. It relies on an electrical charge to store the data, and will discharge over time. It’s literally physically storing electrons, but those electrons are constantly trying to escape. Good flash may last 7-10 years without being plugged in, but the standard off-the-shelf stuff will be dead much quicker.

  Tape or M-DISC are the gold standards, though both are more expensive than flash. Tape is by far the single most resilient method; it can even be reconstructed if it is physically damaged. But it’s also the least convenient and most expensive. M-DISC is a nice middle ground. It’s essentially just a burned disc, but made with materials that won’t rot over time like standard burned discs will. So storage is as simple as storing regular discs. Though if you’re truly trying to apocalypse-proof it, you’d probably want to consider bunkering/burying them somewhere to protect from physical destruction.

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  • SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Wait… Tape is more resilient than m-disc? What? How? Doesn’t tape rot or melt or decay faster than m-disc?

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• leftzero@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Good flash memory might last a decade, maybe a bit more.

  Average flash memory probably won’t.

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• DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  But those rely on electricity to keep their bits in the right position, so leaving them unplugged for a long time means they could lose the charge on the bits.

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  • JackbyDev@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Uhhh… I don’t know about all that. But putting something with moving parts like a hard drive into dirt unless you really really seal it well is not a good bet.

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    • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      He’s right, flash media loses data as unplugged flash memory loses charge over time. It’s called charge leakage in flash memory, it’s a well-known phenomenon.

      A hard drive might work, but, it would need to be stored in some sort of sealed box to keep it safe.

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