| Fred Stluka on 9 Dec 2018 22:43:53 -0800 |
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| Re: [PLUG] How to Store Video Files for 25 Years? |
Casey, Lots of good advice already. My 2 cents, since I currently have valid copies of every single file I've ever created and every single non-spam non-list email I've ever sent or received FOR THE PAST 36 years. *Don't archive. *Keep it all on your current hard disk with your current files. And do regular backups of all your files. Anything else will become a separate non-critical chore and get neglected. *Don't use external media. *It WILL become obsolete. I used to backup to floppies, then Zip disks, then CDs, then DVDs, then USB flash drives, but once regular hard drives got big enough and cheap enough, I just back up to them and don't have to worry any more about external media becoming obsolete. *Keep multiple copies.* I wrote a backup script years ago. Using it, I have ALL of my files on my hard drive, with daily incremental backups and a full backup to the same hard drive for quick recovery in case of user error. And daily updated full backup of critical files to a USB thumb drive that I carry with me at all times. And daily incrementals and full backups to a USB enclosure of a spinning hard drive. And daily sync with a hot standby Mac that I can switch to if my main Mac ever fails. And daily incrementals and full backups to a separate folder on the standby Mac. And backup of most stuff to one of my Linux servers in the AWS cloud. And I buy a new external USB drive every few months and put the old one in my off-site safe deposit box. Like I said, I've never lost ANYTHING! For servers, I typically have NOTHING original there. It's all created and edited on a laptop, pushed to the server by an automated process that compares it first, showing me the diffs. All source code also has one or more copies of a Git repo. All servers have cron jobs that use rsync to backup to other servers. If everything is in the cloud, a cron job backs it up to a local NAS drive just to have one local non-cloud copy. Always multiple copies, many days of incrementals, many years of monthlies or quarterlies, etc. Script it all and don't worry about it. Just replace a hard drive now and then, and put the old one in the safe deposit box. *Do diffs. *Part of my standard automated daily routine is to diff a bunch of critical files and directories against yesterday's backup to spot unexpected changes or bit rot. For my admin files, it's also a good way to review all the changes I made intentionally yesterday, make sure I didn't leave any loose ends, make sure I'm billing the right clients for tasks I did, hours I spent, etc. Despite all of the combinations that my backup script does, it's pretty simple. Each step is just a single rsync command, like this: - http://bristle.com/Tips/Unix.htm#rsync_full_and_incremental_backup See the complete script at: - http://bristle.com/Tips/Mac/Unix/quick And rsync is BLINDINGLY fast. I use it every day, often multiple time per day. Just before I run out for lunch, when I'm done at the end of the day, etc. With 10,000+ directories and 100,000+ files, it finds the 100 or so modified files and copies them or the modified portions of them to a USB drive or another computer in less than 60 seconds. *Don't use proprietary backup formats.* Keep your backups as normal files so you can copy them, diff them, etc. Maybe compress them if you trust the compress/decompress programs to be around forever, but do NOT use proprietary binary backup formats. I just keep mine as plain regular files copied by rsync. Note: Most of my files are text, not images or videos. And simple ASCII files that may be HTML, not Word docs or other huge file formats. So I keep my storage requirements small. My 35 years worth of stuff is less than 50GB. --Fred ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fred Stluka -- Bristle Software, Inc. -- http://bristle.com #DontBeATrump -- Make America Honorable Again! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ On 12/7/18 4:28 AM, Casey Bralla wrote:
As a Christmas present to my wife, I'm converting old VHS home movies that we started filming in the early 1990's. I bought a $35 USB gizmo that came with a Windows-only application. I'm using an ancient laptop with Windows 10 (ugh! I HATE Windows 10, and the the laptop is way under powered for it.) But it seems to be working pretty well. It creates mpg files which I will edit and burn to DVDs on my Linux machine. My wife wants DVDs, but I'd like to also give copies of the videos to my 20-something kids. I figure the videos will be most valuable to my kids in about 25 years. I'll be in the rest home (or worse), and their kids will be interested in their parents as infants. How do I store the files so that they are secure and readable in 25 years? My options: 1. DVD. Pros: Media will survive intact in normal environments. Cons: Bulky. Will you be able to buy old DVD players at Goodwill in 25 years? 2. USB Hard Disk: Pros: Media will probably survive. Good size (not too big, but not too small to lose) Cons: Will USB 3.0 still exist? 3. USB SSD: Pros: Small size. Physically robust for storage. Cons: Will SSD data last 25 years? Will USB 3.0 still exist? 4. USB Thumb Drive: Pros: Easy to mail to them. Cons: Small, so can get lost easily. Will data last 25 years? Will USB 3.0 exist? 5. 3.5 Floppy (Yes, I still have the drives!) Pros: None Cons: Don't be silly Any suggestions? ___________________________________________________________________________ Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce General Discussion -- http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
___________________________________________________________________________ Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce General Discussion -- http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug