Tapes and close to a quarter-century.

[Tom Buskey]

I recently went through my older media (5.25 floppies, 3.5 floppies, 2GB
4mm, zip drives, syquest) and burned them to CD.  I think I converted .ARC
files to .ZIP along the way.  I highly recommend doing this every now and
then.  Magnetic media will fade over time due to the earth's magnetic field.

I remember thinking 1.2MB floppies will be around for a long time.  Try
buying a laptop or PC with any kind of floppy now!  zip and syquest were
niche products.  Tape seems to stick around a bit, but capacities keep going
up and prices stay the same (~ $1k for a 4mm drive).  CDs have to potential
to be around for a long time.  Eventually they'll be replaced, but I imagine
it'll be more then 10 years before you can't buy a machine that'll read
them.

I've tried to stay with more standard document formats.  I've thought about
this for awhile.  I currently have 20k photos and want to make sure they're
available 20-30 years from now.  And longer for my kids.

On 9/19/06, Fred <puissante at lrc.puissante.com> wrote:
>
>
> If you *still* have working 8" drives, my hat is off to ya.
>
> I have lost much cool stuff, as I grew disinterested in keeping media
> around
> that I could no longer read. wah!
>
> -Fred
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