• OT: backup panic?

    From Jan Panteltje@21:1/5 to I like one of the comments that on Fri Sep 13 03:47:58 2024
    Music industry’s 1990s hard drives, like all HDDs, are dying:
    https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/09/music-industrys-1990s-hard-drives-like-all-hdds-are-dying/?comments=1&comments-page=1
    The music industry traded tape for hard drives and got a hard-earned lesson.

    Backup panic?
    I have a thousand or more CD's and DVDs in a light proof alu box
    I have some 24 year old floppies and a USB floppy reader...
    And some 20 year old harddisk that still works...
    A 15 year old USB stick used every day...
    Many old SDcards.
    I like one of the comments that says illegal copies will save the situation. :-)

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  • From Martin Brown@21:1/5 to Jan Panteltje on Fri Sep 13 10:25:26 2024
    On 13/09/2024 04:47, Jan Panteltje wrote:
    Music industry’s 1990s hard drives, like all HDDs, are dying:
    https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/09/music-industrys-1990s-hard-drives-like-all-hdds-are-dying/?comments=1&comments-page=1
    The music industry traded tape for hard drives and got a hard-earned lesson.

    Backup panic?
    I have a thousand or more CD's and DVDs in a light proof alu box
    I have some 24 year old floppies and a USB floppy reader...

    You may find that the oxide coat falls off when you try to read them.

    And some 20 year old harddisk that still works...
    A 15 year old USB stick used every day...

    That might be on its last legs. I knew someone who used them as
    disposable items literally wearing them out the way they were used.

    Many old SDcards.
    I like one of the comments that says illegal copies will save the situation. :-)

    That is quite likely . Rare comedy shows and performances records off
    air by talented amateurs do come to light from time to time and are
    added to the BBC archives. Likewise for tape copies sent abroad that
    ended up lost in some dark cupboard decades ago.

    --
    Martin Brown

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  • From Don Y@21:1/5 to Martin Brown on Fri Sep 13 03:55:55 2024
    On 9/13/2024 2:25 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
    You may find that the oxide coat falls off when you try to read them.

    Or, the drive/transport doesn't work. Or, the controller that
    talks to it. Or, the OS/driver that talks to *that*!

    The fallacy behind all storage mechanisms is that you have no
    assurance of the data's integrity /and accessibility/ until (and
    unless) you actually TRY to access it *and* verify it's integrity.

    How do you reassure yourself that the contents of a particular
    volume are /as they should be/ -- unless you have some sort
    of "signature" that you can verify (in lieu of a duplicate copy
    of the volume's contents)

    [I maintain a database of all files in my "collection" along with
    hashes of each so I can reassure myself that they are intact. I
    am also "prompted" by that collection to let it reexamine volumes
    that it hasn't had a chance to validate in a particular period
    (it automatically validates the contents of any volume it "notices"
    as being accessible)]

    This is why there are mechanisms like patrol read to refresh/reassure
    of the integrity of data that may not be actively inspected at this time.

    That might be on its last legs. I knew someone who used them as disposable items literally wearing them out the way they were used.

    Thumb drives go to pot pretty quickly. Write times start to increase dramatically. Eventually, they all seem to resort to a "read only" mode
    which effectively makes them useless.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Jan Panteltje@21:1/5 to '''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk on Fri Sep 13 13:09:12 2024
    On a sunny day (Fri, 13 Sep 2024 10:25:26 +0100) it happened Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote in <vc10e7$prpi$1@dont-email.me>:

    On 13/09/2024 04:47, Jan Panteltje wrote:
    Music industry’s 1990s hard drives, like all HDDs, are dying:

    https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/09/music-industrys-1990s-hard-drives-like-all-hdds-are-dying/?comments=1&comments-page=1
    The music industry traded tape for hard drives and got a hard-earned lesson. >>
    Backup panic?
    I have a thousand or more CD's and DVDs in a light proof alu box
    I have some 24 year old floppies and a USB floppy reader...

    You may find that the oxide coat falls off when you try to read them.

    Quite possible, lemme see

    Just entered SLS Linux flopy disk A1 from 1998
    is recognized...

    Some other old floppy:
    mount /dev/sdc /mnt/sdc1
    raspberrypi: ~ # l /mnt/sdc1
    total 136
    drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 12288 Feb 23 2000 lost+found/
    -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 80234 Nov 22 2000 suti-0.8.tgz
    -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 43687 Nov 22 2000 xste-0.3.tgz

    OK that one is 24 years old

    This is Microsoft Win 98 startup disk
    raspberrypi: ~ # mount /dev/sdc /mnt/sdc1
    mount: /mnt/sdc1: WARNING: source write-protected, mounted read-only. raspberrypi: ~ # l /mnt/sdc1
    total 1305
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 41302 May 5 1999 OAKCDROM.SYS*
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4 May 5 1999 MSDOS.SYS*
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 25473 May 5 1999 MSCDEX.EXE*
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 30023 May 5 1999 MODE.COM*
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 34566 May 5 1999 KEYBOARD.SYS*
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 20263 May 5 1999 KEYB.COM*
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 222390 May 5 1999 IO.SYS*
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 33415 May 5 1999 HIMEM.SYS*
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 64425 May 5 1999 FLASHPT.SYS*
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 8013 May 5 1999 FINDCD.EXE*
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 65084 May 5 1999 FDISK.EXE*
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 93242 May 5 1999 EXTRACT.EXE*
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 58870 May 5 1999 EGA.CPI*
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 275904 May 5 1999 EBD.CAB*
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 17223 May 5 1999 DISPLAY.SYS*
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 30742 May 5 1999 COUNTRY.SYS*
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1062 May 5 1999 CONFIG.SYS*
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 96546 May 5 1999 COMMAND.COM*
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 30955 May 5 1999 BTDOSM.SYS*
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 21971 May 5 1999 BTCDROM.SYS*
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 456 May 5 1999 AUTOEXEC.BAT*
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 29620 May 5 1999 ASPICD.SYS*
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 40792 May 5 1999 ASPI8U2.SYS*
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 37564 May 5 1999 ASPI8DOS.SYS*
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 14386 May 5 1999 ASPI4DOS.SYS*
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 35330 May 5 1999 ASPI2DOS.SYS*

    So 2024 - 1999 = 25 years old floppy
    seems to work OK!

    But it crashed my raspberry power USB hub, too much current
    had to reboot.
    Normally I use it on a big PC, well that was long ago.


    And some 20 year old harddisk that still works...
    A 15 year old USB stick used every day...

    That might be on its last legs. I knew someone who used them as
    disposable items literally wearing them out the way they were used.

    The only harddisk I ever lost was when I dropped it from the bookhelf,
    it had a piece of music I composed.. and some other stuff, pity.


    Many old SDcards.
    I like one of the comments that says illegal copies will save the situation. >> :-)

    That is quite likely . Rare comedy shows and performances records off
    air by talented amateurs do come to light from time to time and are
    added to the BBC archives. Likewise for tape copies sent abroad that
    ended up lost in some dark cupboard decades ago.

    Yep.

    I no longer have any 5 1/4 inch flops...

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to All on Fri Sep 13 09:16:11 2024
    On Fri, 13 Sep 2024 03:47:58 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
    wrote:

    Music industry’s 1990s hard drives, like all HDDs, are dying:
    https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/09/music-industrys-1990s-hard-drives-like-all-hdds-are-dying/?comments=1&comments-page=1
    The music industry traded tape for hard drives and got a hard-earned lesson.

    Backup panic?
    I have a thousand or more CD's and DVDs in a light proof alu box
    I have some 24 year old floppies and a USB floppy reader...
    And some 20 year old harddisk that still works...
    A 15 year old USB stick used every day...
    Many old SDcards.
    I like one of the comments that says illegal copies will save the situation. >:-)

    Copy them to Dropbox before it's too late.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jan Panteltje@21:1/5 to JL@gct.com on Sat Sep 14 05:56:19 2024
    On a sunny day (Fri, 13 Sep 2024 09:16:11 -0700) it happened john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote in <e9p8ejd9dlbfsjsvmjp19vtrfmmf2brce5@4ax.com>:

    On Fri, 13 Sep 2024 03:47:58 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
    wrote:

    Music industry’s 1990s hard drives, like all HDDs, are dying:
    https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/09/music-industrys-1990s-hard-drives-like-all-hdds-are-dying/?comments=1&comments-page=1
    The music industry traded tape for hard drives and got a hard-earned lesson. >>
    Backup panic?
    I have a thousand or more CD's and DVDs in a light proof alu box
    I have some 24 year old floppies and a USB floppy reader...
    And some 20 year old harddisk that still works...
    A 15 year old USB stick used every day...
    Many old SDcards.
    I like one of the comments that says illegal copies will save the situation. >>:-)

    Copy them to Dropbox before it's too late.

    Not sure dripbox will still work without power after WW3 nuking!
    I think online storage is a bad idea, also for security reasons.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From john larkin@21:1/5 to All on Sat Sep 14 07:48:51 2024
    On Sat, 14 Sep 2024 05:56:19 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
    wrote:

    On a sunny day (Fri, 13 Sep 2024 09:16:11 -0700) it happened john larkin ><JL@gct.com> wrote in <e9p8ejd9dlbfsjsvmjp19vtrfmmf2brce5@4ax.com>:

    On Fri, 13 Sep 2024 03:47:58 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid> >>wrote:

    Music industry’s 1990s hard drives, like all HDDs, are dying:
    https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/09/music-industrys-1990s-hard-drives-like-all-hdds-are-dying/?comments=1&comments-page=1
    The music industry traded tape for hard drives and got a hard-earned lesson. >>>
    Backup panic?
    I have a thousand or more CD's and DVDs in a light proof alu box
    I have some 24 year old floppies and a USB floppy reader...
    And some 20 year old harddisk that still works...
    A 15 year old USB stick used every day...
    Many old SDcards.
    I like one of the comments that says illegal copies will save the situation. >>>:-)

    Copy them to Dropbox before it's too late.

    Not sure dripbox will still work without power after WW3 nuking!
    I think online storage is a bad idea, also for security reasons.

    What's on all those CDs and DVDs?

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jan Panteltje@21:1/5 to JL@gct.com on Sat Sep 14 15:56:50 2024
    On a sunny day (Sat, 14 Sep 2024 07:48:51 -0700) it happened john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote in <ah8bejp1spji8cujrfvkqi0hcmnt4ofp3l@4ax.com>:

    On Sat, 14 Sep 2024 05:56:19 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
    wrote:

    On a sunny day (Fri, 13 Sep 2024 09:16:11 -0700) it happened john larkin >><JL@gct.com> wrote in <e9p8ejd9dlbfsjsvmjp19vtrfmmf2brce5@4ax.com>:

    On Fri, 13 Sep 2024 03:47:58 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid> >>>wrote:

    Music industry’s 1990s hard drives, like all HDDs, are dying:

    https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/09/music-industrys-1990s-hard-drives-like-all-hdds-are-dying/?comments=1&comments-page=1
    The music industry traded tape for hard drives and got a hard-earned lesson.

    Backup panic?
    I have a thousand or more CD's and DVDs in a light proof alu box
    I have some 24 year old floppies and a USB floppy reader...
    And some 20 year old harddisk that still works...
    A 15 year old USB stick used every day...
    Many old SDcards.
    I like one of the comments that says illegal copies will save the situation.
    :-)

    Copy them to Dropbox before it's too late.

    Not sure dripbox will still work without power after WW3 nuking!
    I think online storage is a bad idea, also for security reasons.

    What's on all those CDs and DVDs?

    Code I wrote, OSes I downloaded, movies, stuff I recorded (I used to add Dutch subtitles to
    some English videos for a local organisation here, wrote the software for that too),
    website backup, what not, circuit diagrams., peeseebee layouts...
    There are also M-DISCs
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-DISC
    I have an LG M-DISC burner in a PC. sitting on the table next to me.
    The floppies I simple keep in a steel drawer upstairs where there also is some bags with peeseebee etching stuff, recently that started leaking,
    made a new sealed bag, have not used that stuff in years,
    did not seem to destroy the floppies, but you could smell it..
    So, big fire would wipe out most, website would stay (hosted by some company). Much on the DVDs is in special format not easily readable by others.
    There is also a lot on Reiser filesystem,.
    seems Linus wants to drop support for that from the kernel.
    I may well drop support for Linux and write my own Unix like system if he does.

    And I have at least 14 TB harddisk space in use now...

    Have most interesting Usenet postings all the way back to 1998.

    There is more, datasheets, youtube videos I made, videos from others, the usual stuff...
    This raspi alone has a 4 TB Toshiba harddisc hanging from it..
    raspberrypi: ~ # df
    Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
    /dev/root 30421240 27573940 1502116 95% /
    devtmpfs 3879380 0 3879380 0% /dev
    tmpfs 4044244 0 4044244 0% /dev/shm
    tmpfs 1617700 1336 1616364 1% /run
    tmpfs 5120 4 5116 1% /run/lock
    /dev/mmcblk0p1 258095 50413 207682 20% /boot
    tmpfs 808848 24 808824 1% /run/user/1000
    /dev/sda2 3844420600 2748776460 900283476 76% /mnt/sda2

    Those 4 TB Toshiba harddiscs are really very good..
    And there is all the SDcards, USB sticks...

    You?

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