On Sun, 29 Sep 2024 05:27:48 -0400, Paul wrote:

> On Sun, 9/29/2024 2:28 AM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, 27 Sep 2024 21:32:07 -0400, Paul wrote:
>>
>>> Once you get up to a certain size, they tend to use SSD controllers
>>> inside, then a USB converter connected to that. This can radically
>>> improve the storage characteristic. The SSD controller has static and
>>> dynamic wear leveling. Very few USB sticks have that in a USB
>>> controller (but there are some).
>>
>> The thing is, Linux has, included as standard, support for filesystems
>> (e.g. f2fs, ubifs) that are specifically designed for use on flash
>> storage, with features like wear-levelling directly built into their
>> storage-management algorithms.
>>
>> Consider that SSDs (including USB sticks) incorporate elaborate
>> interface controllers to pretend to the OS that they are disks and can
>> use conventional disk-centric filesystems: imagine the overhead that
>> would simply disappear if you could go direct to the low-level storage
>> and use one of these purpose-built filesystems!
>
> Nobody wants their CPU donating a couple cores, to make up for the ARM
> cores the SSD has. One of my SSDs has a three-core ARM, two cores are
> for error correction on read!

Yes, but a lot of that overhead is pretending to be a raw disk on top of
the log-structured flash-handling layer, which is effectively its own
separate low-level filesystem. Both those layers would go away if you had
a flash-native filesystem on top. Much less overhead overall.

Lars Poulsen <lars@beagle-ears.com> wrote:
> On 28/09/2024 16:14, Ant wrote:
> > In comp.os.linux.misc Lars Poulsen <lars@beagle-ears.com> wrote:
> >> +1 for M-Disc BDR. I use the 100GB version.
> >
> > Aren't they slow? Burning DVDs and CDs take forever! :(

> Yeah, my 60 GB weekly backup set takes about 3 hours to get on disc.
> DVDs are nothing compared to that.

Oof. Even copying files with USB between HDDs is slow enough for me. Haha.
--
"When I have gone out of the city, I will spread out my hands in prayer to the Lord. The thunder will stop and there will be no more hail, so you may know that the earth is the Lord's." ???Exodus 9:29. Dang sicky, leaks, & blow ups again. SNL turned 50 on Nat. Sons Day. Slammy colony times again.
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Lars Poulsen <lars@beagle-ears.com> wrote:
> On 28/09/2024 16:14, Ant wrote:
> > In comp.os.linux.misc Lars Poulsen <lars@beagle-ears.com> wrote:
> >> +1 for M-Disc BDR. I use the 100GB version.
> >
> > Aren't they slow? Burning DVDs and CDs take forever! :(

> Yeah, my 60 GB weekly backup set takes about 3 hours to get on disc.
> DVDs are nothing compared to that.

Also, I hate it when my burns go bad and other drives can't read my burns like with DVDs. :(
--
"When I have gone out of the city, I will spread out my hands in prayer to the Lord. The thunder will stop and there will be no more hail, so you may know that the earth is the Lord's." ???Exodus 9:29. Dang sicky, leaks, & blow ups again. SNL turned 50 on Nat. Sons Day. Slammy colony times again.
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
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/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
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On 9/29/24 3:21 AM, vallor wrote:
> On Sun, 29 Sep 2024 00:43:50 -0400, "186282@ud0s4.net" <186283@ud0s4.net>
> wrote in <OW2dnZiY0ueaRmX7nZ2dnZfqn_idnZ2d@earthlink.com>:
>
>> NONE, really.
>>
>> If you need long-term, optical is kinda IT.
>> I'd suggest "M-Disk".
>>
>> Mag disks can be FAIR - but CAN suffer from "bit rot" after awhile.
>
> Which is why if you value your time, you'll invest in a decent
> NAS, and pay attention to the disks when they complain. If a disk
> starts to fail -- swap it out!

Been there, done that - a lot.

However "bit rot" can happen even on otherwise
perfectly good drives. They pack the magnetic
stripes in SO close these days that they are
prone to "fading" after x-years. In theory
a good error-correction scheme MIGHT rescue
you - or not. The worse prob with bit rot is
with compressed/encrypted files where a prob
with even a bit or two can thwart recovering
the file since what follows can be very dependent
on what came before.

However running a utility that reads and re-writes
disk tracks WILL work. I think you can find 'em
online, or write yer own. Even 'dd' can be scripted
for the purpose.

It's NOT as easy with 'e-disks', M12 and such,
since the data doesn't stay in the same physical
place due to wear-leveling algos. This moving-
around CAN be good, or not.

> I recommend Synology -- not only because of its Linux underpinnings,
> but its excellent management software: a desktop metaphor, controlled
> through a web browser. You can also ssh into it.

My last NAS was a Sinology - it was good and
quite versatile and the price was fair.

Oddly, at this point, OpenMediaVault is a pretty
good NAS - and free. It DOES have a few weirdnesses
however. Setting up temporary shares for safe
backup purposes is a bit odd, you can't write
directly to the disk dirs or it won't index
the files, gotta make local SAMBA/NAS share that
loops thru their system.

> If you do buy one, I recommend getting one with 10G Ethernet (at least),
> and making sure your system has a 10G (or better) connection to it.

The one I had came with a little card slot FOR a
10gb card. However the building wiring was a mix
of cat-5e/6, and only because I insisted on that
long back as "future-proofing", so there was no
point in 10gb. NOWdays, more and more idiots use
wi-fi for everything - and just ignore or are
oblivious of the performance hit involved.

"Why does it take so long to load my GIS files !"
"Waaaaahh !!!"

Even more recent, everybody started storing their
working files in the Cloud - even WORSE speed hit
AND the Russians can obliterate everything easy.

On 9/29/24 5:18 PM, Paul wrote:
> On Sun, 9/29/2024 4:23 PM, Lars Poulsen wrote:
>> On 29/09/2024 02:27, Paul wrote:
>>> The faster that storage devices get, the more sensitive they
>>> become to details. This is why I would keep you well away
>>> from my PCIe Rev5 NVMe at 14000/12000 MB/sec. That still
>>> needs an error corrector, and somehow keep up with the
>>> need to correct every sector being read out. It's one
>>> of the reasons those get so hot (and they put toy heatsinks
>>> on top).
>>>
>>> That's also how you can have devices like this. You would not
>>> get these sorts of rates, without IOPs in the picture to help.
>>>
>>> https://www.anandtech.com/show/21486/highpoint-updates-nvme-raid-cards-for-pcie-50-50-gbps-directattached-ssd-storage
>>
>> So SSDs are safe for long term storage (say, a decade?), even if you don't access them, so long as you keep them powered on?
>>
>
> We don't know all the details of the firmware fixes, but
> at least in one case where the TLC used to get "mushy", the
> fix for that was selective rewriting of some kind, to "refresh"
> the device. That might have been a Samsung.
>
> They don't give us constant estimates of archival life, leaving
> us to "guess" the number is ten years. After all, it takes
> ten years to test :-)
>
> NOR flash chips used to get Bit Rot, between 10 and 20 years,
> but that's an example of a device with no error correction
> at all. The error correction in an SSD, is "mondo-powerful",
> but, it assumes random degradations, not correlated ones.
> If all the floating gates head to zero volts, an ECC
> can't save you then. It is the archival case, that (eventually)
> has to fail.
>
> It's like the Helium disk drives in a sense. We know Helium
> will eventually all leak out of the drive. There is no spigot
> on the side for refilling them. If I put a 22TB drive inside
> a time capsule glass bottle, come back in 40 years, it's
> a good assumption the drive will not start. Some of the drives
> have a pressure sensor (it's been spotted in SMART but is
> not documented). We know then, from "ground truth", a Helium drive
> is not archival quality. All we can argue about, is what year
> all the helium will be gone. The guarantee is for five years,
> but this is not a measured quantity, and if there was any
> significant field failure rate attributable to no gas left,
> it hasn't made the news yet. But the details of the design,
> tell you the gas cannot last forever (it is retained by a
> "thick adhesive", not by a gas-tight tin -- clever
> people did this). The drives have two lids, the inner lid
> secured with adhesive (gas "tight"), the outer welded lid
> mechanically protects the inner lid from "finger pokes".
> The welded lid is not gas tight. The welds do not really
> need to be all that fancy.
>
> The flash is the same way then. We know the floating gates,
> even though disallowed, the electrons will eventually leave,
> and we will be left with a "deflated feeling". If you did
> happen to power up the device once a year, and (somehow)
> the device notices a high error corrector rate, it might
> choose to rewrite the sectors behind your back. I'd leave
> it powered over night, while it catches up on house cleaning.
>
> That's for TLC or QLC. The SLC and MLC drives, might not
> even have that chunk of code, for their maintenance. If they
> had the code, and the TLC or QLC ones had inherited the code,
> we would not have noticed a thing. The fact someone had to
> add code, tells you the SLC and MLC rely on the quality of the
> floating gates, to make it to ten years. Based on the NOR flash
> getting the odd bit corrupted at, say, 15 years, gives you
> some idea about how well the SLC device may hold up. At fifteen
> years, it can use its error corrector and hide those not
> very dense failures. Since TLC and QLC are constantly
> using their error correctors, the behavior is not the same.
>
> Would accelerated life testing be valid for TLC or QLC archival
> parameters ? Dunno. All we know is, the physics are the same
> for the floating gate, but the thresholds are a lot tighter
> on the SSDs you and I own, and there HAS to be a consequence
> to this. The archival just cannot be as good... unless you
> power them occasionally and let them sweep the dust under
> the rug. The ECC can count the number of bits in error in
> the sector, and based on that, it knows how close to
> "uncorrectable" it is getting -- if the power is on.
> Leave it in the back yard for 40 years, the cells will be
> flat, and rewrites, will not be possible.
>
> I would say that 6TB air-breathing drives (state on the lid
> "do not cover this hole), those are archival material. I
> would expect to power one up 20 years from now, and it will work.
> That's why I own five or six of those, but I only own one
> Helium drive.
>
> And with the right optical media choice (not the dye ones),
> those could be buried in the yard as well. Just keep the
> humidity down. You don't want any biological attacks
> on the media. Maybe some Verbatim Gold DVDs would be
> good yard material.

"M-DISK"s are by far the best for archival. They
do not use dyes, something closer to a 'mineral'
layer the laser etches.

Alas, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, optical
disks have LOW capacity by today's standards.

For 10-years PLUS ... really NOT any great choices.
It's a problem.

The OTHER problem is devices/drivers for READING
your old media. Presently the Smithsonian and
Library Of Congress is FREAKIN' about this. The
50s/60s especially saw SO many kinds/schemes of
storage. The formats were often proprietary and
poorly/not documented and the physical devices
and interfaces were oft made for a very short time.

I've got some 8-inch floppies ... where can I read
THOSE ??? Old industrial removable-pack hard
drives ??? The hardware just doesn't exist anymore.
LOTS of govt/mil/NASA data on those old things ...

SO ... REPLICATION ... keep MOVING yer data to the
latest/greatest and 'cloud'. Stick to compression
and encryption SURE to be supported really long term.

On 29/09/2024 21:23, Lars Poulsen wrote:
> On 29/09/2024 02:27, Paul wrote:
>> The faster that storage devices get, the more sensitive they
>> become to details. This is why I would keep you well away
>> from my PCIe Rev5 NVMe at 14000/12000 MB/sec. That still
>> needs an error corrector, and somehow keep up with the
>> need to correct every sector being read out. It's one
>> of the reasons those get so hot (and they put toy heatsinks
>> on top).
>>
>> That's also how you can have devices like this. You would not
>> get these sorts of rates, without IOPs in the picture to help.
>>
>> https://www.anandtech.com/show/21486/highpoint-updates-nvme-raid-cards-for-pcie-50-50-gbps-directattached-ssd-storage
>
> So SSDs are safe for long term storage (say, a decade?), even if you
> don't access them, so long as you keep them powered on?
>
That is the conclusion I came to after a couple of days research

And there is another feature to consider, even if only written
occasionally and in small amounts, the wear levelling software will have
the side effect of reading blocks and re-writing them, thus refreshing
the charges in the cells.

If you really want good lifetime, but an SSD way bigger than you need,
and leave bits of it outside the partitions, empty You wont need to TRIM
it either if its big. So what if there is redundant data on it?

What kills SSDs is erasing blocks. Primarily. Big disks don't need to
do that

There is a bit of bit rot as well on stored charge bit its probably no
worse than a magnetic tape getting cross talk from adjacent layers.

Frankly I consider them as possibly more reliable and longer lived than
spinning rust, when in a 24x7 server setup

--
"What do you think about Gay Marriage?"
"I don't."
"Don't what?"
"Think about Gay Marriage."

On 29/09/2024 22:18, Paul wrote:
> I would say that 6TB air-breathing drives (state on the lid
> "do not cover this hole), those are archival material. I
> would expect to power one up 20 years from now, and it will work.

Well my 2TB drives only lasted about 6 years *powered on*.

I am not sanguine about the lifetime of any magnetic media.

There are hard drives from back in the 1980s that are still booted up
after years in storage. Some boot, some don't, and some are just
partially corrupted.

Magnetic fields are no more permanent than electric fields in SSDs.

SSDS are simply too new to have any reliable long term statistics under
real working conditions.

The short answer is that we are pissing in the wind when it comes to any
long term digital storage.

We know paper and ink lasts, we have the dead sea scrolls..

We know that selenium treated photographs last at least 160 years, We
know that first generation colour prints are seriously degraded after
only 50...

We know that some spinning rust 40 years on is still data recoverable ,
we know that a lot is not.

Often for other reasons than magnetic corruption - corrosion on drive
spindles etc. Dead capacitors in the onboard electronics

A decent cosmic ray knifing through any modern electronics will fuck the
DRAM up to the point where the machine may crash.

No problem. Reboot it...

There are no perfect solutions All data is to an extent written in
'vanishing ink'

But my current best guess is that a rolling replacement of mirrored
disks (rust or SSD) as they show error counts in a 24x7 powered machine
is probably as good as it gets, and the smaller and slower the storage
is, probably the less stressed it will be. Looking at SSD current draws,
it is the cheaper slower ones that seem to draw less and run cooler.

The best news is that we have SMART. And failing but not yet failed
drives due to ageing show up in terms of parity errors. On a 24x7 system.

No one knows till they power up a 40 year old drive whether or not the
data is either still there, or is recoverable.

So my wet finger is moving towards permanently on, lower power, larger,
slow SSDS. From permanently on spinning rust.

My personal server was first built in 2000 or thereabouts. Debian Linux.
It's on its 4th motherboard and its third set of hard drives, and its
umpteenth OS upgrade. but the data is still there from 2000 or so.

I am constructing, slowly, a replacement based on a Raspberry PI and
twin mirrored SSDs,

When its shown to be reliable, I may switch off the *86 based one

I have had another thought, and that is why we 'archive' in the first
place. That goes back to the days when *working* storage was small, but
the need was for stuff to be available for occasional use from slower
media like tape.

Today, with SSDs, our *working* storage can be enormous. And fast. We no
longer need traditional data archives. Just leave it all on the running
machine, and mirror it.

If you must have 'offsite storage', rsynch another portable drive every
so often and take it away to somewhere safe.

--
Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.
– Will Durant

On 30/09/2024 06:34, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
> SO ... REPLICATION ... keep MOVING yer data to the
>   latest/greatest and 'cloud'. Stick to compression
>   and encryption SURE to be supported really long term.

Minus the shouty caps, I agree.

No book survives from the Greek philosophers that wasn't copied again
and again...
The more diverse copies you have on more diverse media, the more likely
one is to survive.

Digital duplication is simple. Plug in a new device, and rsync to your
hearts content.

--
“It is not the truth of Marxism that explains the willingness of
intellectuals to believe it, but the power that it confers on
intellectuals, in their attempts to control the world. And since...it is
futile to reason someone out of a thing that he was not reasoned into,
we can conclude that Marxism owes its remarkable power to survive every
criticism to the fact that it is not a truth-directed but a
power-directed system of thought.”
Sir Roger Scruton

On 30-09-2024 13:25, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 29/09/2024 22:18, Paul wrote:
>> I would say that 6TB air-breathing drives (state on the lid
>> "do not cover this hole), those are archival material. I
>> would expect to power one up 20 years from now, and it will work.
>
> Well my 2TB drives only lasted about 6 years *powered on*.
>
> I am not sanguine about the lifetime of any magnetic media.
>
> There are hard drives from back in the 1980s that are still booted up
> after years in storage. Some boot, some don't, and some are just
> partially corrupted.
>
> Magnetic fields are no more permanent than electric fields in SSDs.
>
> SSDS are simply too new to have any reliable long term statistics under
> real working conditions.
>
> The short answer is that we are pissing in the wind when it comes to any
> long term digital storage.
>
> We know paper and ink lasts, we have the dead sea scrolls..
>
> We know that selenium treated photographs last at least 160 years, We
> know that first generation colour prints are seriously degraded after
> only 50...
>
> We know that some spinning rust 40 years on is still data recoverable ,
> we know that a lot is not.
>
> Often for other reasons than magnetic corruption - corrosion on drive
> spindles etc. Dead capacitors in the onboard electronics
>
> A decent cosmic ray knifing through any modern electronics will fuck the
> DRAM up  to the point where the machine may crash.
>
> No problem. Reboot it...
>
> There are no perfect solutions All data is to an extent written in
> 'vanishing ink'
>
> But my current best guess is that a rolling replacement of mirrored
> disks (rust or SSD) as they show error counts in  a 24x7 powered machine
> is probably as good as it gets, and the smaller and slower the storage
> is, probably the less stressed it will be. Looking at SSD current draws,
> it is the cheaper slower ones that seem to draw less and run cooler.
>
> The best news is that we have SMART. And failing but not yet failed
> drives due to ageing show up in terms of parity errors. On a 24x7 system.
>
> No one knows till they power up a 40 year old drive whether or not the
> data is either still there, or is recoverable.
>
>
> So my wet finger is moving towards permanently on, lower power, larger,
> slow SSDS. From permanently on spinning rust.
>
> My personal server was first built in 2000 or thereabouts. Debian Linux.
> It's on its 4th motherboard and its third set  of hard drives, and its
> umpteenth OS upgrade. but the data is still there from 2000 or so.
>
> I am constructing, slowly, a replacement based on a Raspberry PI and
> twin mirrored SSDs,
>
> When its shown to be reliable, I may switch off the *86 based one
>
> I have had another thought, and that is why we 'archive' in the first
> place. That goes back to the days when  *working* storage was small, but
> the need was for stuff to be available for occasional use from slower
> media like tape.
>
> Today, with SSDs, our *working* storage can be enormous. And fast. We no
> longer need traditional data archives. Just leave it all on the running
> machine, and mirror it.
>
> If you must have 'offsite storage', rsynch another portable  drive every
> so often and take it away to somewhere safe.
>
As regards to magnetic storage: if it is a magnetic tape, its not
lasting that long. I had to extract some data from a several years old
magnetic tape once. Fortunately I decided to read and store the whole
tape in one go. After it had passed the heads in the tape unit, the
complete magnetic layer ended up as dust on the bottom of the unit...

Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> wrote at 00:15 this Monday (GMT):
> Lars Poulsen <lars@beagle-ears.com> wrote:
>> On 28/09/2024 16:14, Ant wrote:
>> > In comp.os.linux.misc Lars Poulsen <lars@beagle-ears.com> wrote:
>> >> +1 for M-Disc BDR. I use the 100GB version.
>> >
>> > Aren't they slow? Burning DVDs and CDs take forever! :(
>
>> Yeah, my 60 GB weekly backup set takes about 3 hours to get on disc.
>> DVDs are nothing compared to that.
>
> Oof. Even copying files with USB between HDDs is slow enough for me. Haha.

Might be a issue with your computer? That's weird.
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

On Mon, 9/30/2024 7:25 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> No one knows till they power up a 40 year old drive whether or not the data is either still there, or is recoverable.
>

There are properties studied in isolation, but there
does not seem to be that much research interest in the
archival properties of hard drives.

Part of the reason, is the physical construction is always
changing, and each era can have a different failure mechanism.

The chances of the drive making it to 70 years and not having
enough magnetic signal, are pretty limited. You are just as
likely, to suffer some other kind of failure. And the Helium drives,
they remove all the uncertainty about 70 years as a target figure.
The glass platters and the loss of helium, say hi. The platters
had to be made thinner, to put ten platters in an inch thick drive.

As home users, our usage of hard drives for backup, is purely
coincidental. The hard drive companies do not place a premium on
that behavior or application. The drive has as priority,
nearline storage and "as much capacity as you can manage". That's
why the Helium drives are a poor match for what a home user
might wish to achieve. A home user, uses Flash, because Microsoft
told them to. They back up their flash (whether eMMC, SSD, NVMe),
with a hard drive. But then it depends on what kind of hard drive
they bought, whether they are "well covered". The 6TB air breathers
are still a good choice for archival storage. The 24TB Helium drives
on the other hand, they're not a good match for archival store.

This is an archival drive. 20 years from now, this will work.
"Do Not Cover Any Drive Holes" means it is an air breather (no helium).
There could be 3 to 6 platters (they stopped reporting platters in
the data sheet, a long time ago, as well as honestly reporting
CMR versus PMR). 4 platters is a good number, but they could
do it with 3 platters now.

"WD Black 6TB"

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/Hh8AAOSw2~VlRLQm/s-l1600.jpg

This is not an archival drive. The outer lid is welded on.
It does not unscrew at the Data Recovery lab. Your data is
trapped in there, and it ain't comin back.

"WD Gold 24TB"

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/nJ59TSmXcVxrM35UVnYJzF-1200-80.jpg.webp

One of the drive companies, put a pressure sensor in SMART, but
it's not documented, so we can't "plot helium pressure versus year" for fun.
The other company didn't put anything in that slot. I have not seen
any info, on the number of BARs of gas pressure in there. It is whatever
amount of gas that is needed, to make the heads "fly". And a drive like
that, is likely to have the fly sensor (DSP measures head current, to
compute flying height on a write). A WD Blue 1TB drive, has sweet nothing,
in terms of technical content, and it does not sense flying height.
It doesn't need to. It doesn't have piezo positioners right at the head.
If you put eight WD Blue 1TB in a drive rack, the vibration from all
the drives, would prevent them from performing properly. One WD Blue 1TB
by itself should be fine.

I had a WD Blue and the farking thing was on one of the six axis
allowed for drives, but the drive is NOT happy, if half way through
its life, you change the orientation. Once you pick to run it horizontal,
keep running it horizontal. Don't flip it upside down, if you can
avoid it. There was a time, when horizontal was the only axis allowed.
But that changed at some point, to a six axis specification (horizontal
right side up, horizontal upside down, being two of them).

Paul

On Fri, 27 Sep 2024 12:40:57 -0400, Joel <joelcrump@gmail.com> wrote:

>Nux Vomica <nv@linux.rocks> wrote:
>
>>It seems that a lot of users are, irrationally, opposed to the
>>use of optical media for long-term archival storage.
>>
>>What, then, are some alternatives for the general user who does
>>not command the BIG $BUCKS necessary for enterprise grade solutions.
>>
>>Tape? Not likely.
>>
>>Note that magnetic (HDD) or IC NAND (SSD) devices are not to be
>>considered long-term storage. Consumer SSDs are especially not
>>long term.
>>
>>Optical media is still by far the best in terms of cost/benefit
>>for the general user.
>>
>>I have hundreds of optical disks that I have produced over the
>>past years, all with GNU/Linux, and they will last me until the
>>end of my time.
>
>
>Optical disks are good if you want a handheld copy of something, but
>external storage or large USB media is what I'd prefer.

But "large USB media" could be optical, or magnetic, or something
else.

--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> wrote:
>On Fri, 27 Sep 2024 12:40:57 -0400, Joel <joelcrump@gmail.com> wrote:
>>Nux Vomica <nv@linux.rocks> wrote:
>>
>>>Optical media is still by far the best in terms of cost/benefit
>>>for the general user.
>>>
>>>I have hundreds of optical disks that I have produced over the
>>>past years, all with GNU/Linux, and they will last me until the
>>>end of my time.
>>
>>Optical disks are good if you want a handheld copy of something, but
>>external storage or large USB media is what I'd prefer.
>
>But "large USB media" could be optical, or magnetic, or something
>else.

No. An optical disc in an external, USB-connected drive, is still
optical media, not USB media. I have a half terabyte USB thumb drive.
That's what I was talking about.

--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

On 9/30/24 10:41 AM, jjb wrote:
> On 30-09-2024 13:25, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>> On 29/09/2024 22:18, Paul wrote:
>>> I would say that 6TB air-breathing drives (state on the lid
>>> "do not cover this hole), those are archival material. I
>>> would expect to power one up 20 years from now, and it will work.
>>
>> Well my 2TB drives only lasted about 6 years *powered on*.
>>
>> I am not sanguine about the lifetime of any magnetic media.
>>
>> There are hard drives from back in the 1980s that are still booted up
>> after years in storage. Some boot, some don't, and some are just
>> partially corrupted.
>>
>> Magnetic fields are no more permanent than electric fields in SSDs.
>>
>> SSDS are simply too new to have any reliable long term statistics
>> under real working conditions.
>>
>> The short answer is that we are pissing in the wind when it comes to
>> any long term digital storage.
>>
>> We know paper and ink lasts, we have the dead sea scrolls..
>>
>> We know that selenium treated photographs last at least 160 years, We
>> know that first generation colour prints are seriously degraded after
>> only 50...
>>
>> We know that some spinning rust 40 years on is still data recoverable
>> , we know that a lot is not.
>>
>> Often for other reasons than magnetic corruption - corrosion on drive
>> spindles etc. Dead capacitors in the onboard electronics
>>
>> A decent cosmic ray knifing through any modern electronics will fuck
>> the DRAM up  to the point where the machine may crash.
>>
>> No problem. Reboot it...
>>
>> There are no perfect solutions All data is to an extent written in
>> 'vanishing ink'
>>
>> But my current best guess is that a rolling replacement of mirrored
>> disks (rust or SSD) as they show error counts in  a 24x7 powered
>> machine is probably as good as it gets, and the smaller and slower the
>> storage is, probably the less stressed it will be. Looking at SSD
>> current draws, it is the cheaper slower ones that seem to draw less
>> and run cooler.
>>
>> The best news is that we have SMART. And failing but not yet failed
>> drives due to ageing show up in terms of parity errors. On a 24x7 system.
>>
>> No one knows till they power up a 40 year old drive whether or not the
>> data is either still there, or is recoverable.
>>
>>
>> So my wet finger is moving towards permanently on, lower power,
>> larger, slow SSDS. From permanently on spinning rust.
>>
>> My personal server was first built in 2000 or thereabouts. Debian
>> Linux. It's on its 4th motherboard and its third set  of hard drives,
>> and its umpteenth OS upgrade. but the data is still there from 2000 or
>> so.
>>
>> I am constructing, slowly, a replacement based on a Raspberry PI and
>> twin mirrored SSDs,
>>
>> When its shown to be reliable, I may switch off the *86 based one
>>
>> I have had another thought, and that is why we 'archive' in the first
>> place. That goes back to the days when  *working* storage was small,
>> but the need was for stuff to be available for occasional use from
>> slower media like tape.
>>
>> Today, with SSDs, our *working* storage can be enormous. And fast. We
>> no longer need traditional data archives. Just leave it all on the
>> running machine, and mirror it.
>>
>> If you must have 'offsite storage', rsynch another portable  drive
>> every so often and take it away to somewhere safe.
>>
> As regards to magnetic storage: if it is a magnetic tape, its not
> lasting that long.  I had to extract some data from a several years old
> magnetic tape once.  Fortunately I decided to read and store the whole
> tape in one go.  After it had passed the heads in the tape unit, the
> complete magnetic layer ended up as dust on the bottom of the unit...

Tape sucks on many levels ... it is SLOW and TEDIOUS
and the coating will not stick to the backing forever.

However, not SO long ago, it was kinda the ONLY "high
capacity" media.

Todays SSDs are indeed fast and have decent capacity
(magnetics still have more capacity for a lot less).
However the SSD tech is NOT as reliable as magnetics.
Bits rot sooner.

REPLICATION is, for now, the only real fix. Keep
MOVING yer data to the latest/greatest. "Cloud"
also offers possibilities - but be careful to use
ultra-standard compression/encryption methods.
Oh, when you retire, the New Guys probably won't
remember to keep paying for the old "cloud" storage ...

Frankly, I don't think today's data WILL last even
100 years. Lucky with 50. CD/DVD/BR is already
going away.

The formats will become obsolete, the devices/drivers
are already obsolete. These facts are seriously
freaking-out archivists already.

Got one of those old removable-pack hard disk units
from the late 60s ? MIGHT have moon-landing stuff
on it. TRY to find anything to READ it. I've got
some 8-inch floppies with data and some cool FORTRAN
pgms on them. What can I find to read them ? It's
a PROBLEM that's just getting worse.

What DOES last ... baked clay tablets. Still
readable after 8000 years. You can read all
about the hero Gilgamesh, note the accounting
of taxes on wheat in Uruk :-)

On Tue, 10/1/2024 1:04 AM, Steve Hayes wrote:
> On Fri, 27 Sep 2024 12:40:57 -0400, Joel <joelcrump@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Nux Vomica <nv@linux.rocks> wrote:
>>
>>> It seems that a lot of users are, irrationally, opposed to the
>>> use of optical media for long-term archival storage.
>>>
>>> What, then, are some alternatives for the general user who does
>>> not command the BIG $BUCKS necessary for enterprise grade solutions.
>>>
>>> Tape? Not likely.
>>>
>>> Note that magnetic (HDD) or IC NAND (SSD) devices are not to be
>>> considered long-term storage. Consumer SSDs are especially not
>>> long term.
>>>
>>> Optical media is still by far the best in terms of cost/benefit
>>> for the general user.
>>>
>>> I have hundreds of optical disks that I have produced over the
>>> past years, all with GNU/Linux, and they will last me until the
>>> end of my time.
>>
>>
>> Optical disks are good if you want a handheld copy of something, but
>> external storage or large USB media is what I'd prefer.
>
> But "large USB media" could be optical, or magnetic, or something
> else.

Presumably something involving the USB Mass Storage standard :-)

(Fraudulent 16TB flash stick -- well, I only wanted to pay $10 for it)

https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/dffbc8a8-87c8-4db7-b6e8-d94b3b2f9b8e.dae192be27efdde1869519eda80a1c9f.jpeg

There were some announcements of 16TB flash drives (2.5"), but
at least some of those designs, did not make it to stores
(controller problems, lack of qty of big flash chips). One
company might be shipping, but the price is about 2X what you
should be paying.

No, in fact, flash is not the answer. Unless you want to build
a huge USB tree of some sort, using Patriot 1TB drives until
you have enough storage.

And real flash drives, the 100TB 3.5" ones, cost as much as a car.
And they tend to work at SATA III rates. Still waiting for a
reviewer to get one (in its own Brinks truck).

Paul

candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:
> Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> wrote at 00:15 this Monday (GMT):
> > Lars Poulsen <lars@beagle-ears.com> wrote:
> >> On 28/09/2024 16:14, Ant wrote:
> >> > In comp.os.linux.misc Lars Poulsen <lars@beagle-ears.com> wrote:
> >> >> +1 for M-Disc BDR. I use the 100GB version.
> >> >
> >> > Aren't they slow? Burning DVDs and CDs take forever! :(
> >
> >> Yeah, my 60 GB weekly backup set takes about 3 hours to get on disc.
> >> DVDs are nothing compared to that.
> >
> > Oof. Even copying files with USB between HDDs is slow enough for me. Haha.

> Might be a issue with your computer? That's weird.

Like overnight, I copied 455 GB that took about 1.5 hrs. ;P
--
"For many years you were patient with them. By your Spirit you admonished them through your prophets. Yet they paid no attention, so you handed them over to the neighboring peoples." --Nehemiah 9:30. 7.5h VZW outage! Dang sicky, leaks, & blow ups again.
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

["Followup-To:" header set to comp.os.linux.misc.]
On 2024-09-27, Rich <rich@example.invalid> wrote:
> In comp.os.linux.misc Nux Vomica <nv@linux.rocks> wrote:
>> It seems that a lot of users are, irrationally, opposed to the
>> use of optical media for long-term archival storage.
>
> Having personally experienced failures of both cd-r and dvd-r media
> wherein the recorded media became unreadable in a very short timeframe
> (only a few years) even with proper storage it is not at all irrational
> to be skeptical of claims of significant lifetimes for optical media
> (esp. the user recordable type, pressed disks are a different matter).
> Existing user recordable optical systems have, so far, had a poor track
> record, so any new system has a higher bar to get over before it is
> trusted for any long-term archive use.
>
>

I've generally had very positive experiences with CD and DVD ROM's I've
burned. I've used Verbatim disks, and I have disks that are 20 years
old that are still fine. BUT I do have a few disks, which I think were
from the same spindle, which started to degrade from the edge, from what
I suspect was a manufacturing defect.

I use hard drives, as it is easy (and cheap) to make copies. Using
BTRFS you can protect against what would otherwise been undetected
errors. I have files that I've transferred from computer to computer,
back from 1994-1995. These exist because I've simply made copies. So
as this has worked for me, that is how I archive. On hard disk, making
copies.

On 2024-10-01, 186282@ud0s4.net <186283@ud0s4.net> wrote:
> ...
> What DOES last ... baked clay tablets. Still
> readable after 8000 years. You can read all
> about the hero Gilgamesh, note the accounting
> of taxes on wheat in Uruk :-)

.... and, according to a discussion I read in some newsgroup,
they're goat-proof, unlike Papyrus. The lengthy discussion
was marvelous!

:-)

--
Robert Riches
spamtrap42@jacob21819.net
(Yes, that is one of my email addresses.)

On 10/1/24 11:28 PM, Robert Riches wrote:
> On 2024-10-01, 186282@ud0s4.net <186283@ud0s4.net> wrote:
>> ...
>> What DOES last ... baked clay tablets. Still
>> readable after 8000 years. You can read all
>> about the hero Gilgamesh, note the accounting
>> of taxes on wheat in Uruk :-)
>
> ... and, according to a discussion I read in some newsgroup,
> they're goat-proof, unlike Papyrus. The lengthy discussion
> was marvelous!

It's kind of an important subject now - SO much
data, important now, important a few years from
now, some important historically - yet there are
really NO good media to STORE it on. The best ones
are also the lowest-density and/or going obsolete.

So, for now, up-replicate plus "cloud". Note that
Vlad's boyz MIGHT evaporate that cloud at any
time alas ....

The durability of those old baked-clay tablets
though - extraordinary. They provide a broad
window into what's likely the very first civ.

The videotapes of the moon landings - can't be
found. SOME think they were over-written with
new stuff by idiots. Me, I think they're in
a trunk in someone's attic. Thing is, they were
typical mylar 'tape' with a mag coating which
WILL start to flake off, esp if the attic is
in Florida. The plastic isn't forever either.

Finally, most everything to do with the early
space program was proprietary - often very
literally one-off - with no standardized or
even decently-documented formats. Hell, we've
never even really SEEN the moon landing because
there was no way to adapt the proprietary HD
video to anything the media could use - our view
was of the news camera pointed at a long-persistence
B&W console monitor.

Can WE make the better 'clay tablet' ? A fused
silica or aluminum oxide disk or page laser-
pitted somewhere inside (with semi-glyphic
instructions on each) ??? 10,000 years is a
worthy goal.

On 30/09/2024 22:35, Ant wrote:
> candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:
>> Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> wrote at 00:15 this Monday (GMT):
>>> Lars Poulsen <lars@beagle-ears.com> wrote:
>>>> On 28/09/2024 16:14, Ant wrote:
>>>>> In comp.os.linux.misc Lars Poulsen <lars@beagle-ears.com> wrote:
>>>>>> +1 for M-Disc BDR. I use the 100GB version.
>>>>>
>>>>> Aren't they slow? Burning DVDs and CDs take forever! :(
>>>
>>>> Yeah, my 60 GB weekly backup set takes about 3 hours to get on disc.
>>>> DVDs are nothing compared to that.

That is burning 55GB to a 100GB-capable BD-R/M-disc, using USB-3 to an
external Pioneer M-Disc compatible BD-R drive.
>>> Oof. Even copying files with USB between HDDs is slow enough for me. Haha.
>
>> Might be a issue with your computer? That's weird.
>
> Like overnight, I copied 455 GB that took about 1.5 hrs. ;P

From what media to what media?

Using what data path?

On Tue, 1 Oct 2024 01:29:29 -0400, "186282@ud0s4.net"
<186283@ud0s4.net> wrote:

> Frankly, I don't think today's data WILL last even
> 100 years. Lucky with 50. CD/DVD/BR is already
> going away.
>
> The formats will become obsolete, the devices/drivers
> are already obsolete. These facts are seriously
> freaking-out archivists already.

And that is the problem with digitising documents, which seems to be
all the rage.

> Got one of those old removable-pack hard disk units
> from the late 60s ? MIGHT have moon-landing stuff
> on it. TRY to find anything to READ it. I've got
> some 8-inch floppies with data and some cool FORTRAN
> pgms on them. What can I find to read them ? It's
> a PROBLEM that's just getting worse.

Part of the problem is planned obsolescence, and that is perhaps one
of the points in favour of open-source software. A firm goes bankrupt
and documents produced with their proprietary software becomes
unreadable.

Perhaps a law should be enacted that any computer software that is "no
longer supported" should be made open source.

>
> What DOES last ... baked clay tablets. Still
> readable after 8000 years. You can read all
> about the hero Gilgamesh, note the accounting
> of taxes on wheat in Uruk :-)

And perhaps most useful output device would be a clay tablet printer.

--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

On 10/1/24 3:10 AM, Paul wrote:
> On Tue, 10/1/2024 1:04 AM, Steve Hayes wrote:
>> On Fri, 27 Sep 2024 12:40:57 -0400, Joel <joelcrump@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Nux Vomica <nv@linux.rocks> wrote:
>>>
>>>> It seems that a lot of users are, irrationally, opposed to the
>>>> use of optical media for long-term archival storage.
>>>>
>>>> What, then, are some alternatives for the general user who does
>>>> not command the BIG $BUCKS necessary for enterprise grade solutions.
>>>>
>>>> Tape? Not likely.
>>>>
>>>> Note that magnetic (HDD) or IC NAND (SSD) devices are not to be
>>>> considered long-term storage. Consumer SSDs are especially not
>>>> long term.
>>>>
>>>> Optical media is still by far the best in terms of cost/benefit
>>>> for the general user.
>>>>
>>>> I have hundreds of optical disks that I have produced over the
>>>> past years, all with GNU/Linux, and they will last me until the
>>>> end of my time.
>>>
>>>
>>> Optical disks are good if you want a handheld copy of something, but
>>> external storage or large USB media is what I'd prefer.
>>
>> But "large USB media" could be optical, or magnetic, or something
>> else.
>
> Presumably something involving the USB Mass Storage standard :-)
>
> (Fraudulent 16TB flash stick -- well, I only wanted to pay $10 for it)
>
> https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/dffbc8a8-87c8-4db7-b6e8-d94b3b2f9b8e.dae192be27efdde1869519eda80a1c9f.jpeg
>
> There were some announcements of 16TB flash drives (2.5"), but
> at least some of those designs, did not make it to stores
> (controller problems, lack of qty of big flash chips). One
> company might be shipping, but the price is about 2X what you
> should be paying.
>
> No, in fact, flash is not the answer. Unless you want to build
> a huge USB tree of some sort, using Patriot 1TB drives until
> you have enough storage.
>
> And real flash drives, the 100TB 3.5" ones, cost as much as a car.
> And they tend to work at SATA III rates. Still waiting for a
> reviewer to get one (in its own Brinks truck).
>
> Paul
>

"Flash" - no matter the size/price - is NOT an
archival media by any definition.

The various SSDs/M12/etc aren't much better.

The tech is the fault - data does NOT persist more
than a few years.

HDDs are better - but they ARE mechanical devices
and also, esp with the high-cap ones, 'bit rot'
can become an issue. Don't expect to put 'em in
the safe for 25 years and still expect to get
data out of them.

It's a SERIOUS PROBLEM. We make SO much data now,
SUCH volume, and at least SOME of it IS important
for both legal and historical reasons - yet there
are NO really good archival media.

Optical disks - esp M-Disks - can LAST ... but they
are LOW-DENSITY by today's defs by a BIG margin.
It's also not clear if you'd be able to FIND a
DVD reader device 25 years from now. Even most
current PCs/laptops don't COME with those anymore.

I usually rec 'forward replication', keep copying
yer data to the latest/greatest media. Alas even
that seems to be running out. The Future is 'cloud',
but remember Vlad's nasty boyz might evaporate that
cloud anytime now.

The Library Of Congress and Smithsonian are FREAKIN'
at this point. SO much historical data - but they
can't even find the hardware/drivers to READ the
often-proprietary media.

Maybe we were better off with baked-clay tablets.
THEY have lasted 8000+ years ... kinda 'low density'
alas, but, on the plus, no 'devices' needed to read
the data. If you want the barley harvest/tax data
for Uruk, it CAN be read from the clay tablets :-)

(oh ... that data shows that LITTLE has changed
for 'civs' in 8000 years - including bureaucrats
and bean-counters)

Ever seen one of these ?

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/47/7b/d0/477bd0823ee461ed51192a3c530d7a49--vintage-advertisements-computers.jpg

http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/physical-object/scopus/102626624.lg.jpg

I do ... they were the 'state of the art' when I first
got into computers. Beat the shit out of tapes.

They fit into a little 'washing machine' box. They
usually had a plastic case with a handle. You could
REMOVE them and put in another disc pack (but DO
make sure they'd stopped spinning - I remember at
least one amusing incident).

They were THE thing in the 60s and 70s - long before
before the little ones that'd fit into yer IBM-PC.
MOSTLY the read heads all moved in unison, but I saw
one at NASA that had independently-moving read/write
arms but that MAY have been one of their one-off
bits of tech. Those were big fat arms too ... nearly
a half-inch between each disk platter in the pack.
Cool to watch them work.

Now, oddly, I took a tour of a US attack sub in
the latter 80s and, in the sonar room, they STILL
had one of these things - attached to a box so
large it probably still used discrete transistors
as its CPU - but mil stuff is specced MANY years
in advance so it's NEVER the latest greatest tech
except in the movies.

Had a brief, understandably security-couched,
conversation with the sonar guy - wherein he
agreed that the best sound/pattern detector was
still gonna be between-the-ears for a LONG time
to come. The computer signal-processing stuff was
an AID, not any definitive word on anything.
Human skill was still what was needed. Our
pattern-detection/comprehension hardware STILL
exceeds most "AI" efforts even now. Darwin
did good.

On Thu, 10/3/2024 2:28 AM, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
> Ever seen one of these ?
>
> https://i.pinimg.com/736x/47/7b/d0/477bd0823ee461ed51192a3c530d7a49--vintage-advertisements-computers.jpg
>
> http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/physical-object/scopus/102626624.lg.jpg
>
> I do ... they were the 'state of the art' when I first
> got into computers. Beat the shit out of tapes.
>
> They fit into a little 'washing machine' box. They
> usually had a plastic case with a handle. You could
> REMOVE them and put in another disc pack (but DO
> make sure they'd stopped spinning - I remember at
> least one amusing incident).
>
> They were THE thing in the 60s and 70s - long before
> before the little ones that'd fit into yer IBM-PC.
> MOSTLY the read heads all moved in unison, but I saw
> one at NASA that had independently-moving read/write
> arms but that MAY have been one of their one-off
> bits of tech. Those were big fat arms too ... nearly
> a half-inch between each disk platter in the pack.
> Cool to watch them work.
>
> Now, oddly, I took a tour of a US attack sub in
> the latter 80s and, in the sonar room, they STILL
> had one of these things - attached to a box so
> large it probably still used discrete transistors
> as its CPU - but mil stuff is specced MANY years
> in advance so it's NEVER the latest greatest tech
> except in the movies.
>
> Had a brief, understandably security-couched,
> conversation with the sonar guy - wherein he
> agreed that the best sound/pattern detector was
> still gonna be between-the-ears for a LONG time
> to come. The computer signal-processing stuff was
> an AID, not any definitive word on anything.
> Human skill was still what was needed. Our
> pattern-detection/comprehension hardware STILL
> exceeds most "AI" efforts even now. Darwin
> did good.
>

Our "personal computer" design at work, had one of those
washing machines as an option. That was our departmental
file server at the time. Surprisingly, it worked well,
and no complaints about the loadable disk packs. Swap a
pack, allow the machine to purge the air for five to ten
minutes, then put it back online.

As for your paragraph:

HDDs are better - but they ARE mechanical devices
and also, esp with the high-cap ones, 'bit rot'
can become an issue. Don't expect to put 'em in
the safe for 25 years and still expect to get
data out of them.

Just be aware there are two groups of drives.
A 22TB Helium drive, is not really archival quality.
It's the unknown Helium status that is the limiting factor.

An air breathing drive at 6TB, is more likely to be running
20 years from now.

As for the "bit-rot" assertion, there is this non-authoritative source

https://datarecovery.com/rd/what-are-hard-drive-error-correction-codes-eccs/

"Most modern hard drives use the Reed-Solomon error correction algorithm,
which doesn’t require much storage space or processing power."

That means that when a sector is read, it can be:

1) Perfect
2) Correct-able
3) Uncorrect-able (returns CRC error)

Flash devices also work this way (50 byte syndrome for 512 bytes sector).

At one time, hard drives assumed single bit errors, random in nature,
uncorrelated, no burst errors. The original error detection might have
been a Fire Code. You could multiply by (X+1) a couple times, when
selecting a polynomial, to allow it to handle multiple single bit errors.
I don't think there was a correction capability with that, it was just
for bit-rot. Back then, you were more likely to see "bits" in the
head signal. Today, the head signal is wavey-gravy and only DSP
techniques recover the data. A lot of items use scramblers to
reduce zeros sensitivity, so even if you attempted to "zero the drive",
if you scope the head signal, it will be a wavey gravy signal, not
a "flat signal". The signal will not be zero volts from one end of the
platter to the other. The signal is scrambled (and could also be
encrypted by FDE encryption, and they would *still* scramble it).
That's why if you think anyone "looks with a microscope and
reads out your .txt file", no, it does not work that way :-)
The recovery process needs at least a computer... and a codes genius.

The FDE part, is why when repairing hard drives today, you have to swap
the ROM from the original controller, with the one on the replacement
controller, because the key is stored in there. In the old days, you
just slapped on a matching controller model number, and it just worked.
That's not how it happens today. There are several ROMs on the board,
but only one needs to be swapped.

Paul

On 2024-10-03 12:40 a.m., Steve Hayes wrote:
> On Tue, 1 Oct 2024 01:29:29 -0400, "186282@ud0s4.net"
> <186283@ud0s4.net> wrote:
>
>> Frankly, I don't think today's data WILL last even
>> 100 years. Lucky with 50. CD/DVD/BR is already
>> going away.
>>
>> The formats will become obsolete, the devices/drivers
>> are already obsolete. These facts are seriously
>> freaking-out archivists already.
>
> And that is the problem with digitising documents, which seems to be
> all the rage.
>
>> Got one of those old removable-pack hard disk units
>> from the late 60s ? MIGHT have moon-landing stuff
>> on it. TRY to find anything to READ it. I've got
>> some 8-inch floppies with data and some cool FORTRAN
>> pgms on them. What can I find to read them ? It's
>> a PROBLEM that's just getting worse.
>
> Part of the problem is planned obsolescence, and that is perhaps one
> of the points in favour of open-source software. A firm goes bankrupt
> and documents produced with their proprietary software becomes
> unreadable.
>
> Perhaps a law should be enacted that any computer software that is "no
> longer supported" should be made open source.

It happens a lot but there is no law pushing for that. Nevertheless,
what you mentioned above is true albeit most hypothetical. In most
cases, even obsolete formats can be read by the new suites because there
is a converter built into the software. I imagine this was a problem in
the 90s with the format of 80s software which suddenly disappeared, but
it no longer seems to be true. Still, I agree that formats should be
open-source.

< snip >

--
CrudeSausage
Catholic, paleoconservative, Christ is king