Long-term archival DVDs, such as M-Discs, containing as much of his personal computer’s data as possible. With slimline jewel cases, around 400 such discs would fit, which could hold up to around 1.5 terabytes. (Secondary question: Which data to archive?)
The first rule of backuping up data is that you are not selective; or if you are selective, you use a blacklist (excluding big useless things like swap files) rather than a whitelist (because you will forget to put something on it).
When storing large numbers of optical disks, you use spindles rather than jewel cases; this approximately doubles the density. But I’m not convinced that archival-grade optical disks are better than regular hard disk drives or flash memory, particularly if you spread across a few different types of media and use large par files; in particular, optical disks are very expensive, and you have no guarantee that they will live up to their durability claims.
For storing digital data, it’s much better to pay the cryonics organization to store it for you. They can store multiple copies in separate locations, and verify their readability and compare their contents every few years.
With many clients storing data, and with ever-decreasing storage costs as technology improves, this will also be much cheaper than physical DIY storage.
Unfortunately, at present, none of the major cryonics organizations have branched out into redundant long-term data storage; other than the described drawer for the cryonics patient’s chosen physical possessions, any and all such arrangements are up to the cryonicist himself.
Not to mention that flash memory has much better storage density. A compromise would be archiving just about everything on flash memory and having an extra copy of just the most important stuff on a couple M-discs.
The first rule of backuping up data is that you are not selective; or if you are selective, you use a blacklist (excluding big useless things like swap files) rather than a whitelist (because you will forget to put something on it).
When storing large numbers of optical disks, you use spindles rather than jewel cases; this approximately doubles the density. But I’m not convinced that archival-grade optical disks are better than regular hard disk drives or flash memory, particularly if you spread across a few different types of media and use large par files; in particular, optical disks are very expensive, and you have no guarantee that they will live up to their durability claims.
For storing digital data, it’s much better to pay the cryonics organization to store it for you. They can store multiple copies in separate locations, and verify their readability and compare their contents every few years.
With many clients storing data, and with ever-decreasing storage costs as technology improves, this will also be much cheaper than physical DIY storage.
Unfortunately, at present, none of the major cryonics organizations have branched out into redundant long-term data storage; other than the described drawer for the cryonics patient’s chosen physical possessions, any and all such arrangements are up to the cryonicist himself.
Not to mention that flash memory has much better storage density. A compromise would be archiving just about everything on flash memory and having an extra copy of just the most important stuff on a couple M-discs.
Considering the mechanism of flash memory, I’m not sanguine about it surviving for centuries.
After losing some digital photos stored on some flash memory, I’m not sanguine about it surviving for months...
Was that recent? They’re a lot better than they used to be.
It was about a year ago.