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I'm willing to bet that the commercially-produced CDs I have will outlast any single piece of media (hard disk, tape, CD-R, DVD, etc.) that you choose to store your digital music on.
Of course, responsible people will continue to update, will make regular backups, and all that, but I've personally seen more than a few people lose their entire music collections due to a hard disk crash or an MP3 player failure (due to their own stupidity, true, but it still happened).
This is leading to yet another industry, Software Backup. For just $55 a year, Carbonite gives you unlimited backup. It may become cheaper and more common as we have automatic backup or just store our data remotely and download as needed. The company performs redundant backups and refreshes your data.
I heard a radio spot for a Georgia Tech game in which Tech boasts that soon you'll be able to store the contents of the Library of Congress in an area the size of a sugar cube. And it will come from Georgia Tech ***followed by a rousing rendition of the "Ramblin' Wreck"***.
Ok, I'm not sure if Tech is on the verge of doing this or are they making an idle boast about some area of research they are doing. Perhaps they hope we will forget about this if it doesn't work out. But it's not that surprising considering how much information we can store now. I remember in 1992 my computer had a 20 MB hard drive and my floppy held 1.44 MB. Now my laptop has 160 GB and my cheapo flash drive holds 8 GB and they are behind the market curve now. With every additional bit of addressable space we add, we double the amount of information we can hold.
Now what is this limited lifespan you speak about? Digital files have an end date? Digital Media will last a few decades? Digital Media is not even that old yet?? What do you mean by this? As long as you have the files backed up, you will have the files. No matter how one stores them. If you have a GB of files in a harddrive it doesnt just evaporate.....does it? What do you mean?
Quote:
Originally Posted by rcsteiner
I'm willing to bet that the commercially-produced CDs I have will outlast any single piece of media (hard disk, tape, CD-R, DVD, etc.) that you choose to store your digital music on.
Of course, responsible people will continue to update, will make regular backups, and all that, but I've personally seen more than a few people lose their entire music collections due to a hard disk crash or an MP3 player failure (due to their own stupidity, true, but it still happened).
To expand on rcsteiner's response, files don't evaporate, but disks do crash and the expected lifetime of a hard drive is just a few years. It's smart to make backups but many (I suspect most) people don't. Furthermore, the problem with backups is choosing an appropriate medium. Physical media don't last forever and are at risk of becoming unusable because of changing technology. Imagine if you had a lot of valuable information backed up on "floppy" disks. You can probably forget finding a computer that will read the 5 inch format. Pretty soon the 3 1/4 inch format will be equally unreadable, if it isn't already. My husband used to have some live music recordings on reel-to-reel tape. He had the worst time tracking down a working player, a couple of years ago, in order to recover some of that music. This problem would have been unimaginable at the time he made those recordings, over 30 years ago.
I read somewhere that the Library of Congress has a lot of digitized records and an ongoing project in which they repeatedly evaluate the next generation storage technology, then move all the data to that, then start over.
At the present time, ironic as this may seem, if as private individuals we want to preserve some writing or images for posterity, the most reliable storage medium is probably still paper. It does last a long time and degrades incrementally, so that an old book or faded photograph still has accessible content.
This is leading to yet another industry, Software Backup. For just $55 a year, Carbonite gives you unlimited backup. It may become cheaper and more common as we have automatic backup or just store our data remotely and download as needed. The company performs redundant backups and refreshes your data.
This is a good idea, but what happens if Carbonite goes out of business, or you forget to pay the annual fee? Do you go with two subscriptions to different firms, for extra protection? When you die, are your heirs going to be able to access the information? What say you've got all the family photographs online, digitally, and your kids don't take much interest in them, but decades later, your grandchild or great-grandchild would have loved to see them?
Our culture has built up all kinds of laws, customs and equipment (like filing cabinets and safes) for maintaining paper records. The digital age is changing that, and we can't predict where the process is going.
I think family photographs are an interesting area. My husband's family is far-flung, with many siblings, and they post a lot of photographs to Facebook. This is great for keeping up with cousins, nieces, nephews etc. in a way that wasn't possible before. On the other hand, all these photos are kind of ephemeral. Is Facebook a reliable long-term repository? Probably not. In the recent past, a few photographs would tend to get preserved, maybe in a few albums, and you could show the kids pictures of the previous couple of generations. In future, I suspect the plethora of digital photography may actually make it harder to pass on a meaningful collection of images.
I think with network speeds getting faster and faster, folks will eventually be able to subscribe to online libraries where they can listen to, watch, or read anything they want to at any time. Think "On Demand" expanded to music, books, magazines, etc. Folks wil be able to create playlists or have things "suggested" to them ala Pandora. With wireless getting better and better, this concept should soon apply to cellphones and car stereos with no problem. Folks would only need to download stuff if they are heading somewhere out of network reach. The hardest part will be deciding what gets digitized instead of languishing unloved and unnoticed in a forgotten physical form. It will also be a huge task to upload all the music, video, and text in various formats. Still though, I think some company is crazy enough to do it.
The old physical formats will definitely still be around. although I think only vinyl albums will actually be manufactured. I can imagine some future analog of Steampunk culture arising around eight tracks or cassettes. However, I think the LP will outlive the CD in production since MP3's are essentially the same thing as what's on a CD. LPs will hang around due to their quirkiness factor and as a way to maintain some sort of visual art to accompany the music.
This is a good idea, but what happens if Carbonite goes out of business, or you forget to pay the annual fee? Do you go with two subscriptions to different firms, for extra protection? When you die, are your heirs going to be able to access the information? What say you've got all the family photographs online, digitally, and your kids don't take much interest in them, but decades later, your grandchild or great-grandchild would have loved to see them?
Our culture has built up all kinds of laws, customs and equipment (like filing cabinets and safes) for maintaining paper records. The digital age is changing that, and we can't predict where the process is going.
I think family photographs are an interesting area. My husband's family is far-flung, with many siblings, and they post a lot of photographs to Facebook. This is great for keeping up with cousins, nieces, nephews etc. in a way that wasn't possible before. On the other hand, all these photos are kind of ephemeral. Is Facebook a reliable long-term repository? Probably not. In the recent past, a few photographs would tend to get preserved, maybe in a few albums, and you could show the kids pictures of the previous couple of generations. In future, I suspect the plethora of digital photography may actually make it harder to pass on a meaningful collection of images.
I think most folks will still prefer to keep their personal photos and records on their home hard drive. I would be one of those people. I agree that digital photography presents an interesting challenge to preserving a photographic record but I think someone will come along with some excellent ideas to preserve and present photos if they haven't already. I can see a big market for longterm data storage management emerging as the baby boomers age. Maybe families will be lucky to have someone who takes on the mantle of 'digital custodian." Someone who basically does the same thing geneaology nuts do but with archaic file formats rather than old family Bibles.
This is a good idea, but what happens if Carbonite goes out of business, or you forget to pay the annual fee? Do you go with two subscriptions to different firms, for extra protection? When you die, are your heirs going to be able to access the information? What say you've got all the family photographs online, digitally, and your kids don't take much interest in them, but decades later, your grandchild or great-grandchild would have loved to see them?
Our culture has built up all kinds of laws, customs and equipment (like filing cabinets and safes) for maintaining paper records. The digital age is changing that, and we can't predict where the process is going.
I think family photographs are an interesting area. My husband's family is far-flung, with many siblings, and they post a lot of photographs to Facebook. This is great for keeping up with cousins, nieces, nephews etc. in a way that wasn't possible before. On the other hand, all these photos are kind of ephemeral. Is Facebook a reliable long-term repository? Probably not. In the recent past, a few photographs would tend to get preserved, maybe in a few albums, and you could show the kids pictures of the previous couple of generations. In future, I suspect the plethora of digital photography may actually make it harder to pass on a meaningful collection of images.
Right now we deal with "what if my home catches fire?" "What if there is a flood or a pipe bursts and destroys my papers and photos?" "These things can never be replaced!" ...etc.
The backup storage industry and laws will evolve to deal with the issues you raise. A company going out of business like Carbonite would probably be bought out along with its information and they'd send you endless reminders that your subscription is expiring or expired if you forget to renew. I doubt they delete the information the day after your account is past due. And $55 for a year is not a lot. Besides, the way it works now is that it backs up your hard drive so you still have the information on your computer regardless. You could then subscribe with someone else. The only real problem is if your hard drive fails and you didn't renew and you don't have the money to restore your account or the company is bankrupted and destroyed all its data. I'd say the odds are in your favor.
I'm willing to bet that the commercially-produced CDs I have will outlast any single piece of media (hard disk, tape, CD-R, DVD, etc.) that you choose to store your digital music on.
Of course, responsible people will continue to update, will make regular backups, and all that, but I've personally seen more than a few people lose their entire music collections due to a hard disk crash or an MP3 player failure (due to their own stupidity, true, but it still happened).
Ok well since you put it that way, I see your point. I have had a few currupted files on my itouch, but I always had access to it via a reserve hard drive. I know people can be careless with their digital media. I still have some old CDs, but I dont buy new ones. I think the last CD I bought was Nas God Son Album that was a while ago.....everything after that was a download.
This is leading to yet another industry, Software Backup. For just $55 a year, Carbonite gives you unlimited backup. It may become cheaper and more common as we have automatic backup or just store our data remotely and download as needed. The company performs redundant backups and refreshes your data.
I heard a radio spot for a Georgia Tech game in which Tech boasts that soon you'll be able to store the contents of the Library of Congress in an area the size of a sugar cube. And it will come from Georgia Tech ***followed by a rousing rendition of the "Ramblin' Wreck"***.
Ok, I'm not sure if Tech is on the verge of doing this or are they making an idle boast about some area of research they are doing. Perhaps they hope we will forget about this if it doesn't work out. But it's not that surprising considering how much information we can store now. I remember in 1992 my computer had a 20 MB hard drive and my floppy held 1.44 MB. Now my laptop has 160 GB and my cheapo flash drive holds 8 GB and they are behind the market curve now. With every additional bit of addressable space we add, we double the amount of information we can hold.
I like what you are saying Mathman, even though the convo has drifted a bit....what it all really about? The Easy Button.
That story also said that Barnes & Noble might merge with Borders. I think bookstores will eventually die out. People are treating them sort of like libraries by taking books from the shelves to the coffee shop to read.
Atlanta used to have a really good independent bookstore Oxford books. Really neat place but it closed I believe in 1997. I wasn't crazy about their coffee shop though.
But things change. There used to be TV repair shops. It was cost effective to take your TV to a repair shop and wait a couple of weeks to have it fixed but today, it's cheaper to throw the TV out and buy a new one in many cases.
I wonder how long libraries will survive, at least as we know them. They might morph into community like centers to give tutoring and other public assistance. Even internet access might become as ubiquitous as cell phones so no need for library public computers.
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