Newsgroups: sci.image.processing
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From:  <robin073@maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: Re: Saving 100GB of data for 15 years cheaply
Message-ID: <52367.robin073@maroon.tc.umn.edu>
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Date: Wed, 9 Aug 1995 16:53:24 GMT
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On 8 Aug 95 21:13:14 EST, 
Markish boyperson  <maturney@acad.ursinus.edu> wrote:

>In article <3vtejh$mg@nntp.ucs.ubc.ca>, keith@msmri.med.ubc.ca writes:
>> Please post replies to sci.data.formats.
>> 
>> I need to save several hundred gigabytes of medical imaging data on a cheap 
>> reliable media.  We are currently saving the data to 10GB 8mm Exabyte tapes.
>> This is cheap but is only good for about 1 year.  Does anyone have any better
>> suggestions?
>> 
>> Thanks in advance.
>> 
>> Keith S Cover
>> Physics, UBC
>> Vancouver, Canada
>> keith@msmri.med.ubc.ca
>> 

(My site doesn't appear to carry sci.data.formats).

All media deteriorate over time, but apparently there is a fundamental 
problem with magnetic tape in that the binder is inherently unstable.  
Eventually the binder and magnetic oxide separate from the base, smearing 
themselves all over the playback mechanism in the process.

It's bad enough for computer data, but in a few years the world's entire 
collection of VHS videotapes is going to self destruct!

Kodak has done a lot of work on film archiving, and I believe that they 
now have something called the "molecular sieve" which greatly retards 
film aging.  Hollywood is interested in rearchiving their film collection, 
but are hesitant about digital approaches because of the enormous amount of 
data involved, media instability, and the uncertainty over compression 
technology - once lossy compression is used the original data cannot be 
recovered.

