On 12/6/23 06:53, Antony Stone wrote:
> On Wednesday 06 December 2023 at 12:44:44, Didier Kryn wrote:
>
>> I believe the most reliable long term archive is a spinning disk you put
>> on a shelf and you read very rarely.
> I'm assuming you mean not spinning at the time, in which case I think two
> disks are essential, with regular (eg: annual) checks that they do actually
> spin when you want them to.
>
> I've certainly had example of disks in machines which I've then stopped using,
> and maybe 3 years later decided to archive the contents of the drives, only to
> find that they won't even start.
You are not alone.  I, personally, have never had this happen with DLT
or LTO tapes.
>
>> Of course, on very long term, you must also take care that the filesystem and
>> the image encodings are still supported.
> Anyone who's worked with mag tapes, punched cards, paper tape, 8" floppies,
> CP/M, Pr1mOS, etc is already familiar with that problem :)
tar and dump are  your friends
>
>
> Antony.
>