It may be possible to purchase small runs. The master is what costs.


@H_TeXMeX_H if you are anything like me, brains are not that durable either. Hehee :) My brain is the worst media.

A cheap DVD from Wal Mart. It lasts a very long time... measured in dog years, that is. :D

If the world is going to end in Dec 2012 then it only has to last a few years?

Hi,

This is constructive to the thread how?Do not post in this manner again, you have been warned.

Maybe see:
http://www.gizmowatch.com/entry/japa...g-alternative/

I may have overestimated how long HDDs can last, it says 40 years, will change.

Hi,
From your link;
Look at the density! Now that is a Masked ROM with 2.5Tbits for eternity.
:hattip:

Stifling my comments on the wisdom of such time capsules, let me eliminate sata.

A friend of mine is IT Manager in a digital imaging place, and he routinely fills several hard disks with huge tiff files. He is careful, allowing devices to spin down before moving, etc. He has recently moved from ide to sata - his spec was: lowest price per Gb:-/. He noted a marked drop in reliability, and has had to up redundant copying accordingly.

Capacitors degrade. Metal rusts. No electronic equipment would last, nor mechanical stuff. Why not let their engineers do what patents force modern engineers to do anyhow, reinvent the wheel? Would the OP seriously want to pollute the future with mS windoze, and BSODs?

I would put the data on a cloud and prepay for the time needed. Then I would put put a hardcopy of the login information in the time capsule.

Hi,

That would be good if the cloud would insure that it would have the data available at a later date. Any system would be dependent on a data backup system. But that data may degrade over time if stored magnetically or even optically. Fixed state storage like ROM(masked or link type) will last for a long time.

This ROM is 2.5Tb and is masked. Still not a feasible storage for very large backup.
:hattip:

I recall an article a few month ago about libraries (national, regional and local) exploring the problem of long-term storage of electronic data (books? those last for hundreds of years if printed on acid-free paper). The consensus appears to be gold CD-R which cost at least $5+ each and are "guaranteed to last 300 years." Having been through laser-rot with LaserDisc's, unreadable mass-market music CD's, unwatchable mass-market DVD's I kind of wonder about the 300-year business (I'd probably assume, maybe 50 years, possibly 100, but I wouldn't bet the farm on either). From what I understand about gold archival media you've got a good shot at some decades, how many is questionable. I do know that if you arrange for storage in an old salt mine you've got a better chance of the things lasting quite a while -- they're dry, constant temperature, and not subject to much radiation (like cosmic rays that do penetrate you, the ground, steel, lead, and all sorts of stuff.

This discussion tickled memory of NASA's Voyager probes equipped with a gold-plated record (yeah, like pre-CD-ROM vinyl records) with pictographic instructions on how to read it right there in plain sight. Assuming a civilization that can actually see in the proper wavelength...

Anyway, hope this helps some.

Interestingly, Certain old books(not mentioning what purpose these books were for in view of moderator's comments) came down to us nearly complete on vellum, which is a leather parchment. The ones I have in mind (Mentioning no names)have indeed stood the test of 1600+ years. Sadly, I don't think electronic media could manage that.

"Most durable storage media" I have to ask myself what does that mean? Why would one need not only durable but MOST durable?

When I say the world will end in 2012 I am not only saying that in a half joking manner I also mean it in a real sense that does directly relate to the original post.


Since I now seem to have to explain what should be known to well educated people I will fully explain it here and to how all of it exactly relates to this post.

Overview.
Show recent historical doomsday dates, My relationship to some of those date. Decoding past data, Mayan calender. Decay of the earths magnetic field. Massive solar ejections.

Doomsday dates in recent times that I know of are 1994, 2000 and 2012. 1994 being based on a book held little worry for me. It tended to scare some people and may still be a cause. YTK was really a western problem of the original PC. 2000 is a date that not all civilizations and cultures even use. I retired from one of the largest computer companies before YTK and was 99.999% sure that no end of the world would happen because of this original bios clock issue. We even sold services, and made a bunch out of it. A real or even a perceived threat to civilization can or could cause a great deal of worry. One may be inclined to try to make a time capsule in order to move data to the next humans. OK, I was worried during the Cuban Missile deal but that didn't have a time line but it may have been the start of the original "time capsule" fad in the 60's ... man.

Decoding the past. If one wanted to make a capsule they would need to have it able to be decoded. As noted above what we have here is not what may be possible to be viewed. I could send a simple anything today but it may not be decoded. A fantastic show was decoding the past. The story of how the Mayan writing was decoded. (by a child no less). So your data has to be decoded if it is really durable. I was corrected in that pioneer did use a gold plated aluminum plaque to present various types of data. So the data has to be able to be decoded for any use. Rocks have been the standard it seems.

Mayan calender was finally decoded. It does in fact end in December 2012 as part of a progression. Some give the end of the world statement to it. I can't say I belive in future telling. I do know that the calender has no known way to be added to for 14 but other records show larger progressions. The series of progressions have no base to either add in a progression or make a super set but most Mayan data was lost due to the Spanish. Why the Mayan's left it at 13 that is unknown but still a valid reason to make a time capsule. The 13th progression ends on in Dec 2012.

Now we start getting to the meat of the truth to my statement. I have prior in the post been against magnetic media. In the past 50 years the earths magnetic field has started to decay and shift. In fact many places on the earth have no magnetic field or has become way off. This is shown on magnetic variation charts. Now exactly what would happen to any modern electronic society without a magnetic field has never been proven. Many thoughts on it suggest that electric generation and electric motor function may not work. Anyone with somewhat advanced knowledge of how an electro-magnetic field is created knows that it starts by the earths magnetic field. What would happen? Clearly a cause for concern based on real science and real data.

Lastly is the real threat to any electronic based magnetic storage. Massive solar ejections. Last time the Sun had this level as projected to occur was in the 1800's. Civilization was almost not effected by it then. Even though the bulk of the damage was to wiring other related hazards from fires were noted. Modern day thoughts on what may happen tend to deny the full effects in my opinion. What is real is that every year some damage may happen by the normal bursts or EMF and RFI the Sun puts out. If 2012 shows to be equal to or greater than the 1859 storm then not only the OP but every one on this post has a real reason to protect data due to real doomsday threat. In fact I can say that 2012 to me is as real as the Cuban Missile crisis. What doomsday prediction? Magnetic media on most parts of the planet is destroyed. I was in the Navy and trust me, we easily erased tapes and burned out tv's with fire control radar mile away. It may be that the entire electrical grid of major parts of the world are left in shambles. Problem there is every vehicle's computer was damaged, every factory's computers were damaged. There would be simply no way to fix it. Every electric and electronic device in vast areas may be rendered almost useless. Electric caused fires could rage for months over cities and open spaces. There would be no where to hide from such an event. No food production and storage to maybe a billion or so. Think of the Katrina deal instead of the size of a small state to the size of a continent.
Combine lack of an earths protective magnetic shield at the same time as a corneal blast may be a source of worry.

If not all that, one has to concede that a reasonable sized chunk of matter from space could end it all in a few seconds.


Do I think one should leave a time capsule for enjoyment? Sure. A family may enjoy digging up past memories. As to what the OP wanted for this time capsule would be that no, he did not intend it to be a family task.

Most durable means to me the end of the world deal. And worthy of doomsday survival.

Most of the optical disks I've recorded or been given over the years are now unreadable. To expand on what MacDawg mentioned...you can use a RAID 1 system. HDD's now are starting to use 3TB drives, but with SSD's your going to have to pay a lot to get more storage space.

There isn't one. The problem is that when digital media degrades, information is lost. A clay tablet can wear down, but still be readable. Paper can degrade and still be read, but when a DVD or hard drive degrades, bits of information just disappear.

DVD's/CD's: Supposedly decades for a good brand, but some say the degrade after months. I've got Verbatim CD's burned 10 years ago that work just fine. Kodak (and probably others) sells archival CD's that last (supposedly) 300 years, but you are you going to read it in that time?

These estimates of longevity are based on theory though, no one has actually had a burned CD for 50 years let alone 300 years. But, if you are certain there will be means of reading them (and unless civilisation collapses, there will be, or one can be made), then gold archival CD's are probably the best option.

All human made objects will when left alone, slowly convert back to their original state. Metal rusts, plastics degrade, dyes fade. It all goes back to dirt. Because gold is a precious metal it doesn't corrode, and it is already at its 'natural state' in an elemental form, therefore not going to be subject to the same ravages of entropy. Think of all the gold jewellery that still exists frorm thousands of years ago, yet iron objects have disappeared.

Ideally, I would literally etch data onto a gold surface, but thats kind of difficult. Next best thing is a gold CD, stored in an airtight container with no moisture and no light.

However, make multiple copies. That I think is most important. The data that I have retained for 15 years, even more, still exists because of multiple copies and transferring it from medium to medium. NEVER put all your digital eggs in the one storage basket. Make multiple copies and store them in different locations. All the books of antiquity exist because of copies and pieced together from copies.

a bit of a side note relevant to this thread but someone once said the 20th and now the 21st centuries (particularly starting with the late 20th century) have been the most documented centuries to date yet project the same time into the future as we have come from ancient times and archiologists from the future will have as much if not MORE difficulty deciphering our era then we do the egyptians, simply because technology advances so fast and leaves archived data on obsoleted mediums in the dust.

long story made short, durability is essentially irrelevant if there is nothing left to read the medium

that being said i would probably burn to more then one copy on more then one medium and if possible, store it in a vacuum to help prevent oxidation and decay, and leave a computer capable of reading the media with it (cheap laptop or something like it)