Best long term storage solution for archive

NYCDrewNYCDrew NYC(duh)
edited February 2010 in Hardware
I have many gigabytes(300+) of music, pictures, video, etc. that I would like to protect by making an archive of them. I'll store the archive in a safe place in case something happens to my server.

What is the best way to store data for years without data loss? External hard drive? SSD? DVDs? Flash drives?

Comments

  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited February 2010
    Storing the content on flash memory is the ideal method. It won't degrade like magnetic or optical media but, of course, the price/GB ratio is decidedly inferior to the prior methods.

    //EDIT: I want to specify an SSD's flash memory, as it is of higher quality than that which can be found in a flash drive. Flash drives would be your second best choice.
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited February 2010
    SSD's are probably a good choice. Flash drives are in theory a good choice but I've had to many flash drives that have worked one day and for whatever reason failed to work the next. I have no long term trust in flash drives, I still use them for lots of things just not something I'd trust my archives too.

    SSD's are still expensive for most people's budgets and I haven't seen enough long term data usage tests to be convinced they are better then flash, though the high quality ones should be, but then again high quality flash drives should be also.

    Personally if i were archiving that much info I'd still stick to a regular external drive for now.
  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian
    edited February 2010
    kryyst wrote:
    Personally if i were archiving that much info I'd still stick to a regular external drive for now.

    I'd second this. If you have the money I'd say get an external RAID drive such as this WD MyBook

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136281

    Just make sure you get something with some redundancy (Mirror or RAID5). A striped RAID isn't a good backup solution.
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