How to Keep Music for Forty Years? 96
Pinky3 asks: "I recently started digitizing my reel-to-reel music tapes. Most are thirty to forty years old (the first was recorded in 1964). How confident are you that the music you are collecting today will still be playable in forty years? What strategies are you adopting to keep your music safe?"
"I am starting to get worried about having all my music on one 200 GB hard disk. Like most of us, I have had a hard drive die on me in the past. At an Apple store last month a sad young man was in a panic because he had purchased lots of music from the iTunes Music Store while at work. He lost his job, so he made sure all his music was on his iPod. When his iPod died the next month, he lost everything (yes, he should have made a data backup to CD or DVD). At least when one of my tapes deteriorated, I lost only the music on that one tape. Will you be keeping a single repository or writing everything back onto multiple CDs? We all know to keep backups, but we also know that few of us do. Is all your music backed up? In my case, many of my tapes were backups of my long playing records, but they are gone now too.
Another issue is format, both physical and electronic. I am able to play forty year old tapes because I have kept the equipment needed (a 30 year old Tandberg tape deck). (Aside: after announcing that they would no longer produce tape, Quantegy was sold and has begun producing tape again. The initial announcement of the end of production was covered earlier on Slashdot).
I no longer have a 5.25 inch floppy drive, so even if I had kept old floppies, I wouldn't be able to get the data off. I am pretty sure that CDs and DVDs will not be the current media for music in 2045. Are you planning on keeping old players just for your music? Or will you copy everything onto each new format as it appears?
If you are keeping your music on a hard drive, are you ready to copy everything over to a new hard drive every four or five years? Also, what electronic format are you using? Are you confident that (name your favorite format) will still be supported in 2045?
Although I don't expect to be alive another forty years, I would not like to lose my music before I die."
music == any other data (Score:5, Informative)
Do I plan on using these hard drives for 40 years? Of course not. If something better comes along I'll convert what I have now to the new format (Like how mp3s came along and replaced CDs for me, I converted the CDs that I liked to mp3). I'll do this as many times as is necessary until I kick the bucket, hopefully a bit more than 40 years from now.
Re:music == any other data (Score:3, Insightful)
I do this, too... and, as posted in parent, I'll convert, transfer, everything I have to, it hasn't been a problem in the past, and gets easier as the media handle larger quantities of data.
I think a possible unanswered question, at least for me, is "What if there's nothing that will play mp3's down the road?" I have over 1000 CD's converted to mp3's, but here could be the dilemma.... what if, when mp3's become
Re:music == any other data (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:music == any other data (Score:2)
You do realize that "verbed" is a noun used as a verb, or as you say 'verbed', right?
Re:music == any other data (Score:2)
(Note that the sentence in my sig isn't my creation, Slashdot user 122843 posted it here on Slashdot in a comment.)
Re:music == any other data (Score:1, Interesting)
I have several unrecoverably bad CD-Rs of different vendors, which are less than 2 year old and have been kept in a cool, dark storage container without being read more than one time (md5sum-validation after burning).
Has anyone made similar experiences?
Re:music == any other data (Score:1)
Yeah, don't use CD's for backups... use tapes, they seem to age much better and cost less per GB.
Also, put it in another location--not in same area (Score:2)
Re:Also, put it in another location--not in same a (Score:5, Funny)
Like I've always said, if you don't have off-planet back-up, you don't have back-up. :-)
Re:music == any other data (Score:3, Funny)
So you chose to prempt natural deterioration by adding your own?
avoid lossy formats for archival (Score:2)
Only one thing you can do (Score:4, Informative)
As for backups, I currently suggest DVDs stored off-site. With long-term data like music, you really only need to make one backup, not every week or anything. Although you should test restoring the off-site backups at least once a year.
Re:Only one thing you can do (Score:3, Insightful)
The CDDA format is 23 years old, a disk created 23 years ago still plays today. A file created with some off the wall PC format 23 years ago may or may not be playable. I think the only formats I would consider if it wasn't a physical CD are a CDDA
Re:Only one thing you can do (Score:3, Informative)
Longevity of CD-R's [mscience.com] has been studied, and a preliminary government study [nist.gov] of DVD-CD lifetimes indicates that you should keep multiple copies, check the media for errors annually and create new dups as bit rot occurs. This is also mentioned in this article [photo.net] on archival life for DVD's.
There doesn't seem to be a single method that is known to last 20 years. Of note, op
Re:Only one thing you can do (Score:2)
then every so often you just copy it to your new hdd which you buy anyway for space reasons.
Hard Drive Only (Score:2, Interesting)
And given the fact that I can still find a SNOBOL compiler on the net, I'm assuming I'll be okay for a while (until my hearing goes, and then, oh well...)
Do it the Linus Torvalds way (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Do it the Linus Torvalds way (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Do it the Linus Torvalds way (Score:2)
No no no
Not too difficult (Score:2)
Burn high quality CDs at slow speeds for deeper pits and backup on a couple of hdds, move it to new storage every 5 years or so and add the new stuff you've acquired.
It's easier now than ever to backup but it is also as you said easier than ever to lose your whole collection. I keep 2 backups in a safety deposit box (along with my companies backup data) so I'm backed up in
Re:Not too difficult (Score:3, Informative)
This isn't how CDR media works at all. Instead of burning pits in the aluminum foil (which isn't how mass produced cds are made either; the substrate is injection molded w/ pits & lands and then the foil is mashed onto that rough surface) the laser's heat causes a state change in dye. (Reference [howstuffworks.com])
The only thing burn speed really affects is mechanical precision.
Re:Not too difficult (Score:3)
In short, cyanine discs (often bluish-greenish in color) are reputed to handle slower burn speeds better, whereas pthalocyanine discs (often yellow or clear) are supposedly better at higher burn speeds.
I realize that I've used lots of qualifiers in my comment, because frankly I don't have as much experience burning CD-Rs as many others, and your particular c
Re:Not too difficult (Score:1)
People don't seem to have mentioned the importance of taking care of your backup CD-Rs. Perhaps it's obvious, but CD-Rs should be protected from heat, humidity and light--the chemicals used in CD-Rs are somewhat light sensitive even after the disc burn is finished. Sunlight is especially bad.
Oh, and microwaving your CD-R backups [bris.ac.uk] is not recommended either.
Tranfer more often. (Score:2)
When cds came out, I moved everything off my floppies onto CDs. This made it more convenient. I could pop in one cd instead of looking through a ton of floppies for what I wanted. Same thing with DVDRs. I'm moving everything onto them to be more convenient. Deleting all the crap I don't care about anymore. As far as file formats, some I don't use anymore. I've usually found something better, and make the sw
I Still Buy Vinyl (Score:2)
Personally though, I've just played a game of keeping multiple copies in different places, depending on how irreplacable the content is the more pearanoid I am about spreading it around.
Re:I Still Buy Vinyl (Score:2)
Not too hard... (Score:3, Insightful)
Mitsui Gold (Score:2)
Every time there is a study on CD-R storage stability these test way better than all the others.
MAM-A [mam-a.com]
Lossless and multiple backups (Score:2)
Re:Lossless and multiple backups (Score:2)
For most purposes, WAV is a waste of space. FLAC will cut those file sizes in half while preserving every single bit of data. The only time I use uncompressed waveforms is when I'm recording and editing. If all you're doing is playing them back, there's no reason to store your music as WAVs.
backups, backups, backups... (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm using multiple Linksys NSLU2's, an embedded linux box designed to be an Bring Your Own USB Disk file server. Out of the box it only provides SMB file sharing, but mine are running the opensource unslung firmware [nslu2-linux.org] to give me full control over the system.
I'm doing my backups via automated rsync over ssh, to multiple boxes in mult
Re:backups, backups, backups... (Score:1)
Re:backups, backups, backups... (Score:1)
One of the backup units is in my office, next to the source machine. Another is at home. Synchronizations to home aren't a big issue, syncs to work from home are slow, but I'm not concerned about the backup speed.
In a "oops the drive in machine X" died situation, I should have a
Online storage (Score:2, Interesting)
The format and longevity of your backups is now not an issue. They only have to last one backup cycle. The physical medium doesn't matter, since if you can write the backups regularly, you can obviously still read them; when a medium s
Re:Online storage (Score:2)
Amen. I just keep a second drive in each of my machines and rsync them every night or whenever the machine is more than 90% idle with the screensaver on for more than 10 minutes.
Avoid copy "protection" (Score:4, Interesting)
Sometimes I wonder: What if I had to bring out my old 386 to play the music I bought 15 years ago? I'd feel cheated, but today people seem to put up with this. They buy DRM-ed files and copy restricted CDs which happens to work on most of today's equipment, but who knows with the computers and CD players of the (near) future? 15 years is not a long time, really, but computers have evolved immensely in that time.
Backups (Score:3, Insightful)
One reason why music can't be compared to 5.25" floppys is because the information is more important to me. I had a bunch of 5.25" floppys that I ended up throwing away years ago. But I didn't care about the information. (I didn't even know what was on most of the floppys). I care enough about my music to make sure that it gets copied regularly.
Plus, my bet is that we are much more likely to see CD players 40 years from now than you think. Reason: backwards compatibility. Since there is so much info on 4.75" optical discs, it is foolish not to include the capability to read them, even as the storage changes. That's why DVD players play CDs and HD-DVD players will play DVDs and CDs. Just too much information, readily accessible and capable of fast and easy duplication (unlike 12" albums and cassette tapes) for the industries to junk them entirely, for probably at least 20 years. The next 20 years after that, you'll be able to find players (just like you can still find turntables that play 12" LPs.
Future Compatability (Score:1)
Source code? (Score:1)
Why not just store source code for a Vorbis decoder on the same disc? Or are you claiming that C and the machine languages in which compilers are implemented will become dead languages within the next 40 years? Heck, Fortran is still around.
Long Now Foundation (Score:1, Informative)
It might be pricey, but wouldn't it be worth it for your 400th great grand-children to be able to listen to your New Kids on the Block collection?
Recovering audio from old tapes (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.josephson.com/bake_tape.html [josephson.com]
http://www.wendycarlos.com/news.html#baketape [wendycarlos.com]
The Wendy Carlos article is particularly interesting to me since it involves the soundtrack to the movie TRON.
FWIW all the CDROMs I have from 13 years ago are
Shouldn't be a problem (Score:2)
A different question is whether you'll be able to read the data. I think you should:
1. Make sure there are open-source readers for any format you use (and keep copies of them with the data)
2. If possible pick a simple format that you could reverse-engineer yourself in a pinch (e.g. XML
Re:Shouldn't be a problem (Score:1)
Probably the best idea I've seen so far (apart from Multiple Redundancy).
Re:Shouldn't be a problem (Score:2)
There should be a standard addendum tagged on to stories like this;
Back up everything onto five different servers running a variety of RAID-5 configurations, including SCSI, ATA, and SATA. Burn everything on to six different varieties of CD-R and DVD-R media, storing each in a separate climate controlled off-site location. Store multiple copies scattered through your house and re-burn the entire collection every six months wit
Flac on hard drives (Score:2)
As for the format, I would recommend FLAC: it is lossless, and open source. So this should last for long. If you see Flac starting to disappear, re-encode to another format, as long as the new format is also both lossless and open source.
Sure, it's bigger than mp3 at 128 kbs, but hard drives are not so expensive.
And of course,
But wait, (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:But wait, (Score:1)
Re:But wait, (Score:2)
Topps [etopps.com] does this sort of thing with their 'limited edition' sports trading cards. You can buy a 'card' and they 'keep it in their warehouse'. You can buy, sell, trade [etopps.com], whatever. Yeah right. You are buying a row in a db, until you want it actually printed out and mailed.
(I have no verification of this, but if I were the eTopps guy, that's what I would do. And that's what it lo
I back up my data on.. (Score:2, Funny)
One of these days i'll type it back in, and hit rename on that txt file
Re:I back up my data on.. (Score:2)
On a slightly more serious note, on of my college professors still ahs important data from studies on decaying paper tape that he has no feasble way to get digitize, and that was only about 10 years after he did the studies. (I said feasable, i know there are ways, but nothing too practiacl as i understand it.)
Re:I back up my data on.. (Score:2)
Re:I back up my data on.. (Score:2)
Too long term. (Score:3)
Re:Too long term. (Score:2)
Bull.
There's lots of media that's advertised as long term, but how do you know that you can find inexpensive tech to play it back forty years from now?
Well, the OP is still able to play 40 year old tapes on his own (already paid for) equipment, so it's patently obvious that there is extant low-cost equipment that plays his 40 year old media.
Re:Too long term. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Too long term. (Score:2)
OP cares enough about his music to keep a reel-reel tape player in functioning service.
Organizations with data on 9-track tapes, punched cards, 8-inch floppies, and other such stuff who were too short-sighted to either (a) migrate the data, or (b) retain the capability to read the old media are now reaping what they've sowed.
silly old people (Score:3, Insightful)
A better question: How confident am I that I'll actually *want* the music I'm collecting today to be playable in forty years?
Re:silly old people (Score:2)
Re:silly old people (Score:2)
My music is in my hard drive. For safety I attached a cable leading to an external hard drive where I keep copies. For even more safety I attached a second cable leading to a DSL router. And if that doesn't work, well, what else are friends good for?
I may be a damned optimist, but I fully expect to be able to find someone who has whatever I lose should the worst happen to my local copies.
Re:silly old people (Score:2)
Well, much if not most of my favorite music is in the 40 years or older category.
Re:silly old people (Score:2)
Re:silly old people (Score:2)
Dead Media Project (Score:2)
Basically, you should transfer to new formats as they arise.
Don't use new technology, go back in time! (Score:1)
That or go buy some punch cards or write the song down bit by bit and write the
No problem (Score:2)
I always thought it was a mistake thinking in term of having the data in a vault somewhere. It is more like a dynamic process: each time you get a new storage technology, you just copy the data on it. There is no question of perennity, I stil have my 1990s files.
The two remaining questions are: failure of the technology you are currently using, and file format. For the former, just triple the backups IN DIFFERENT PLACES (think about fire, tornadoes, flood, angry ex-girlfriend) I personally backup all imp
Re:No problem (Score:2)
Just 4 of my favorite forces of Nature.
Analog Tape (Score:2)
The answers easy - p2p (Score:2)
You'll be able to retrieve it any time you want from the gazillion people who downloaded it.
Course you'll have to lie low from the RIAA for a while.
Re:The answers easy - p2p (Score:2)
RAID (Score:1)
Re:RAID (Score:2)
Archiving things is a neverending process... (Score:2)
"How to keep music for three years"
This means:
archiving (Score:1)
Gmail (Score:1)
Backup only selected musics (Score:1)
The music that I really dig is of the kind I could listen to in say 10 years.. maybe in those 40. Maybe 50 % of that music is known enough that I could be able to rebuy it somewhere in World now or say in 10 years. That music exists in various backups: CDs, DVDs, 3-4 hard drives, backupped on my bf's HD as well. And some of the music that I really, really, like has been also CD
Simple :-) (Score:1)
Even if (Score:2)
Just like some camera shops maintain a side business of doing VHS and DVD transfers of old 8mm film, there will be companies that will do the same thing with music and obsolete video formats in the years to come.
However, if you'd like to avoid paying someone, I recommend capturing everything to your HD in whatever your favori
Consider Magneto-Optical (Score:2)
Don't ignore storage; it's critical. (Score:2)
Now, we need to get one thing straight right off the bat. You might be worrying about what digital format to use. Personally, I'm not going to wade into that much except for some sage advice: use a commercially viable format. In other words, RedBook CD players will be around in 50 y
My CDs are already dying (Score:2)
I started to buy CDs in 1992, now some of my oldest and favorite albums are already starting to fail. I can't rip some tracks any more.
Today I own more than 2.000 CDs, more than half of them are out of print. I'm starting to digitalize my collection, so I can have access to it later. My plan is:
Library of Congress' advice for preservation (Score:4, Informative)
Par for redundancy? (Score:2)
(open) standards, and staying fresh (Score:1)
Encoding in the same format and having an organized directory tree keeps life simple also - Artist->Album>Tracks. I started encoded @ 192, and decided to switch 320kbps about a year ago.
Going with something very openly accepted makes life easier. Everyone does MP3, but a lot of people are really down OGG. (Perhaps someone below me can go more into OGG and
100 year storage? (Score:3, Interesting)
-l
The way of the Do-do (Score:3, Informative)
As for your issue about backing them up, by all means do. If you have to convert between the new file formats I think it is a small price to pay in order to preserve your music. As for the electronic back ups, I suggest a raid array to prevent hd loss, this may seem extreme to some people, a raid just to preserve music. Though if this guy has taken this much care to maintain his collection this long I am sure he would go the extra mile. Also with harddrives as inexpensive as they are now, and most newer motherboards supporting some type of raid out of the box, you could bring this to fruit for a few hundred dollars.
Shellac Disks, of Course (Score:1)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=1216161 [npr.org]
Shellac (Score:2)
Find yourself a shellac disk, and cut the audio waveform into the surface of that disk.
I have a 78rpm version of this archive method that was created in 1910, and it still plays the music just fine.