News Twenty percent of hard drives used for long-term music storage in the 90s have failed

[Admin]

Iron Mountain says that one-fifth of the storage media it receives from the music industry are bricked.

Twenty percent of hard drives used for long-term music storage in the 90s have failed : Read more

 

[Gururu]

AI can recreate the original works no problem.

 

[dimar]

They couldn't archive the data to m-disc Blu-ray??

 

[jp7189]

AI can recreate the original works no problem.

While I think your comment was meant to be snarky, it is true that AI is fantastic at filling it missing gaps. If these drives had media errors it is likely AI could help. Not so much for a completely lost drive.

 

[USAFRet]

They couldn't archive the data to m-disc Blu-ray??

That did not exist 25 years ago.

 

[OneMoreUser]

They couldn't archive the data to m-disc Blu-ray??

That would take them using time machines to transport those Blu-ray discs and hardware needed 20 years back in time, that is expensive so not a viable suggestion. Wanna try again?

Articles like this should be a wake up call to all people with digital data stored, there is bound to tons of family memories hidden away on digital storage. And it is not like the drives or other media used is only a potential issue if they are 20 years old, so really everybody needs to make sure having multiple backups including having off-site ones. On the plus side even cheap thumb drives can holds lots of data these days, and they are very compact also which makes it easier to store - so having a extra backup with a friend or family member is not a big hassle.

 

[DiamondFlyer]

Absolutely shocking that no one thought in those 30 years about copying those old hard disks to new hard discs. Storage became dirt-cheap: you could literally copy 200 of your 1996 average 3Gb disk to a single 750Gb drive in 2006!!!
If we can do this at home with our family photos and movies collection, why are majors not capable to do that with their precious art???

 

[Heiro78]

I just recently got a bluray burner to transfer some old data from CDs and DVDs. Crazy how it will all fit onto a single 25GB bluray. I remember back in the day getting dual layer DVDs to maximize storage.

 

[DS426]

Any data that matters at all should be backed up and ideally using that 3-2-1 strategy at a minimum. This and testing the ability to restore backups should not only be firmly executed by any legitimate IT professional but made to be general knowledge to everyone. This seems obvious but it has slipped even some large organizations at times, at least in some ways. at times .

There probably weren't strong PSA's broadcasted to the music industry, so some very much slipped thru the cracks.

 

[rgd1101]

just a few days ago. there another member want to get data from cassette tape from the 80s with unknown system.
more than just storage, need the system and possible software to open the data.

 

[JeffreyP55]

Iron Mountain says that one-fifth of the storage media it receives from the music industry are bricked.

Twenty percent of hard drives used for long-term music storage in the 90s have failed : Read more

I have three WD 2TB black 3.5 drives I now use for storage only. Two are more than 10 years old.

 

[ThatMouse]

Music industry does not understand how back-ups work.

 

[ThomasKinsley]

This is a good reminder for me to get another disk. My most recently one is 8 years old, lol. My oldest is 17 and it still works.

 

[USAFRet]

What is your backup situation at home?

What is your backup situation at home? And if you don't do that, why not? Every single day, I read multiple threads here of "How do I get my stuff back?" or "That drive had 5 years of photos of my kids!!" Be it a dead drive, dropped phone, virus, accidental deletion, formatting the wrong...

forums.tomshardware.com

Discussion - Your critical data

Just today, I've interacted with multiple members who are in the throes of panic, trying to recover their data from a failed drive. Internal, external, RAID. If you've been paying any attention here, you know that physical drives fail. Sometimes gradually, sometimes in the blink of an eye. I've...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Any data that matters at all should be backed up and ideally using that 3-2-1 strategy at a minimum. This and testing the ability to restore backups should not only be firmly executed by any legitimate IT professional but made to be general knowledge to everyone.

For those that don't know:

3 Copies ("a safety copy" according to the article is only 2)
2 different formats (e.g. one on hard drive and one on LTO tape, which 2 HDDs again does not satisfy)
1 off-site (ideally the different format)

So put a copy on two hard drives and one in the cloud would be the standard home user backup strategy.

 

[Zerk2012]

For those that don't know:

3 Copies ("a safety copy" according to the article is only 2)
2 different formats (e.g. one on hard drive and one on LTO tape, which 2 HDDs again does not satisfy)
1 off-site (ideally the different format)

So put a copy on two hard drives and one in the cloud would be the standard home user backup strategy.

That would vary by individuals. When I did a lot of work using my PC I had a good backups.
I no longer have any backup on disc. I have 6 videos and about 50 pictures that I would hate to loose. My solution now was I used my wives Email account and Emailed them to 2 of my Email accounts.

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

Really that's how most people think backups work, you get a hard drive and store it in a controlled environment and it will last forever.

To store them properly using more modern methods, like M-Disks that have been around for 15 years or more modern tape libraries, would cost them money they'd rather not spend because what they have "still works", just like people who buy one external hard drive and don't think to replace it until it's full (or even then), even forgoing utilizing very low cost or even free reputable cloud storage (OneDrive, Google Drive) for their critical irreplicable documents and photos.

 

[dimar]

That would take them using time machines to transport those Blu-ray discs and hardware needed 20 years back in time, that is expensive so not a viable suggestion. Wanna try again?

Articles like this should be a wake up call to all people with digital data stored, there is bound to tons of family memories hidden away on digital storage. And it is not like the drives or other media used is only a potential issue if they are 20 years old, so really everybody needs to make sure having multiple backups including having off-site ones. On the plus side even cheap thumb drives can holds lots of data these days, and they are very compact also which makes it easier to store - so having a extra backup with a friend or family member is not a big hassle.

M-Disc DVDs became available in 2009 and Blu-Ray in 2013. They should've started the backup or migration right away, and not wait until the last moment.

 

[USAFRet]

M-Disc DVDs became available in 2009 and Blu-Ray in 2013. They should've started the backup or migration right away, and not wait until the last moment.

Many people and entities do not think they need a backup, until about 5 seconds they discover they need it.

With or without the m-disc thing, this could have easily been prevented.

Alas, it wasn't.

 

[TeamRed2024]

While I think your comment was meant to be snarky, it is true that AI is fantastic at filling it missing gaps. If these drives had media errors it is likely AI could help. Not so much for a completely lost drive.

Can't say I'm a huge AI fan... but I did download an app recently and posted a pic of my new motorcycle with the comment "Roast my bike in one paragraph" and I was falling out of my chair laughing. Good stuff.

For those that don't know:

3 Copies ("a safety copy" according to the article is only 2)
2 different formats (e.g. one on hard drive and one on LTO tape, which 2 HDDs again does not satisfy)
1 off-site (ideally the different format)

So put a copy on two hard drives and one in the cloud would be the standard home user backup strategy.

I have a couple 2.5 8TB SSDs and a 12TB HDD. All 3 are backups of the same data. I guess the only thing I'm doing wrong is they are all hooked up to the same power supply?

 

[dimar]

Can't say I'm a huge AI fan... but I did download an app recently and posted a pic of my new motorcycle with the comment "Roast my bike in one paragraph" and I was falling out of my chair laughing. Good stuff.



I have a couple 2.5 8TB SSDs and a 12TB HDD. All 3 are backups of the same data. I guess the only thing I'm doing wrong is they are all hooked up to the same power supply?

I believe every 5-10 years, you're supposed to transfer those archives to a newer tech media, because the old tech will deteriorate with time no matter what.

 

[Gururu]

While I think your comment was meant to be snarky, it is true that AI is fantastic at filling it missing gaps. If these drives had media errors it is likely AI could help. Not so much for a completely lost drive.

I’d be curious. If we ask AI to generate an original recording of “Let it be” by the Beatles, I suppose people might eventually confuse it for the original.

 

[dimar]

I’d be curious. If we ask AI to generate an original recording of “Let it be” by the Beatles, I suppose people might eventually confuse it for the original.

Or generate imaginary alternate takes of songs. Limitless possibilities. The future will be a mess.

 

[Amdlova]

Storage is a nightmare... CD/DVD can be eaten by fungus . Have tons of disc rotten. just put it on front of a light bulb and you will see little dots.
Hdd even power down can be damaged... The magnets can loose the magnetic power over time... (And the neodymium loose the strenght with heat for more here).

I think the better way to store something is the old tape I got some k-7 here with more than 40 years and still working like new. Even a floppy drive if you remove the dust from it will work.

SSD is the future of long term storage 3 months of power down and you will have a bad day! (joke)

 

[ottonis]

From a music collector's point of view, vinyl records suddenly appear to be much more attractive, as they have the potential to last much longer than the usual record media (e.g. analogue tape or hard disks, SSD, memory cards, CD-Discs etc.) - provided they are taken care of and stored at the right temperature, humidity and are not played a lot with bad record players. But even vinyl is far from indestructible and the used PVC material may deform sooner or later and damage the ultra-fine music track-engravings.
On a general level, we are dealing with the principle of entropy that becomes more apparent the more complex information needs to be preserved. Even our DNA that has potent built-in repair mechanisms accumulates critical errors / mutations that result in a loss of information and an increase in entropy, so biological systems have turned to focus on creating new beings/offspring (by recombining DNA) while abandoning the aged organism (death).
Translated to storing music or films - there seems no way around doing frequent generational copies. Such a procedure will certainly help to prolong the half time of our music collections.