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Of interest to digital photographers with flash memory
While looking around in a drawer, I discovered a small flash memory card I bought in 2000, it's a 16m card. Yes, that's meg, not gig! Anyway, there are still photos on it, and I can read it with no problems. 12 years so far, not bad! I'm going to hide it away and check in a few years, if I last that long! |
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Of interest to digital photographers with flash memory
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Of interest to digital photographers with flash memory
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#4
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Of interest to digital photographers with flash memory
"Rich" wrote in message ... wrote in : While looking around in a drawer, I discovered a small flash memory card I bought in 2000, it's a 16m card. Yes, that's meg, not gig! Anyway, there are still photos on it, and I can read it with no problems. 12 years so far, not bad! I'm going to hide it away and check in a few years, if I last that long! Probably a better idea than DVD's, cloud storage, etc. Expensive though if you were to use it for all images. Also, I'm not sure about the longevity of solid-state hard drives either. They should last a long time in a draw not being used, not so much when being written to constantly. That said, no electronics will last forever whether being used or not, and the interface will become obsolete sooner or later. Pretty hard to read an ESDI or ST506 hard drive these days for example, even if it still works. You *can* have the data recovered of course if it does (and even if it doesn't), but at a cost which may or may not be justified. Consider that even a SATA interface will probably not be available on your new computer 10 years from now. The only answer of course is to constantly migrate all data that you don't wish to lose, hence going for multiple cheaper options is preferable to a single expensive one. Trevor. |
#5
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Of interest to digital photographers with flash memory
"Rich" wrote in message ... wrote in : While looking around in a drawer, I discovered a small flash memory card I bought in 2000, it's a 16m card. Yes, that's meg, not gig! Anyway, there are still photos on it, and I can read it with no problems. 12 years so far, not bad! Early flash memory cards had large cells and straightforward yes / no levels. I would expect these to remain readable for decades and for something where bit errors will not have a major effect (like photos) some degradation may not even be noticable. I'm going to hide it away and check in a few years, if I last that long! OTOH modern flash memories have tiny cells and multiple levels and will be much more easily upset by cosmic rays etc. In the long run they will forget. Probably a better idea than DVD's, cloud storage, etc. Expensive though if you were to use it for all images. Also, I'm not sure about the longevity of solid-state hard drives either. SSD and USB drives are all [nand] flash memory. They are likely to remain readable in the medium term (10 years). One time burnt CD's are likely to be the longest term and most stable offline format for a number of reasons: - 1. Chemically, physically and electrically stable media. 2. Large transition area. 3. Despite debuting in 1985, CD's remain readable in current [backwards compatible] drives. as it pointed out in other branches of this thread many other media formats have come and gone - I have the archive of an old [1988] project on a DC600A data cartridge, but I haven't seen a reader since the mid 1990's and some cards and paper tape from the 70's. |
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Of interest to digital photographers with flash memory
On 2012-08-10 13:00 , R. Mark Clayton wrote:
"Rich" wrote in message ... wrote in : While looking around in a drawer, I discovered a small flash memory card I bought in 2000, it's a 16m card. Yes, that's meg, not gig! Anyway, there are still photos on it, and I can read it with no problems. 12 years so far, not bad! Early flash memory cards had large cells and straightforward yes / no levels. I would expect these to remain readable for decades and for something where bit errors will not have a major effect (like photos) some degradation may not even be noticable. I'm going to hide it away and check in a few years, if I last that long! OTOH modern flash memories have tiny cells and multiple levels and will be much more easily upset by cosmic rays etc. In the long run they will forget. Probably a better idea than DVD's, cloud storage, etc. Expensive though if you were to use it for all images. Also, I'm not sure about the longevity of solid-state hard drives either. SSD and USB drives are all [nand] flash memory. They are likely to remain readable in the medium term (10 years). One time burnt CD's are likely to be the longest term and most stable offline format for a number of reasons: - 1. Chemically, physically and electrically stable media. Quite poor actually. When subject to light and heat (and possibly humidity) the information decays rapidly. Such CD's need to be kept in cool, dark, dry places to last a long time. If you mean commercially 'pressed' CD-ROMs, that is another matter as the information carrying layer is not an organic dye as it is for the one-ime writeable CD's we use for storage. OTOH, there are better versions such as the "gold" archival CD/DVD's that will last much longer. -- "Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities." -Samuel Clemens. |
#7
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Of interest to digital photographers with flash memory
On Thu, 09 Aug 2012 21:11:25 -0500, Rich wrote:
wrote in : While looking around in a drawer, I discovered a small flash memory card I bought in 2000, it's a 16m card. Yes, that's meg, not gig! Anyway, there are still photos on it, and I can read it with no problems. 12 years so far, not bad! I'm going to hide it away and check in a few years, if I last that long! Probably a better idea than DVD's, cloud storage, etc. Expensive though if you were to use it for all images. Also, I'm not sure about the longevity of solid-state hard drives either. As far as I know these memories depend on glass insulation to keep the charge alive or something like that... there are 2 possible problems here, 1 is radiation affecting the charge directly or just natural decay through other resistive paths, or 2 something that activates the write mode by mistake E.G. something biasing it to the "on" state. Anything that can be written to can be written in error. Unfortunately I haven't kept up with this technology... |
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Of interest to digital photographers with flash memory
"Alan Browne" wrote in message ... On 2012-08-10 13:00 , R. Mark Clayton wrote: "Rich" wrote in message ... wrote in : While looking around in a drawer, I discovered a small flash memory card I bought in 2000, it's a 16m card. Yes, that's meg, not gig! Anyway, there are still photos on it, and I can read it with no problems. SNIP 1. Chemically, physically and electrically stable media. Quite poor actually. When subject to light and heat (and possibly humidity) the information decays rapidly. Such CD's need to be kept in cool, dark, dry places to last a long time. Well [obviously] yes. I wasn't suggesting hanging them up in the garden to scare cats. Much the same applies to other media such as film or prints. etc. If you mean commercially 'pressed' CD-ROMs, that is another matter as the information carrying layer is not an organic dye as it is for the one-ime writeable CD's we use for storage. True, but the change is pretty irreversible. Similarly one won't get spontaneous change. OTOH, there are better versions such as the "gold" archival CD/DVD's that will last much longer. Glad to hear it - use those if you can afford gold. |
#9
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Of interest to digital photographers with flash memory
wrote in message ... On Thu, 09 Aug 2012 21:11:25 -0500, Rich wrote: wrote in m: While looking around in a drawer, I discovered a small flash memory card I bought in 2000, it's a 16m card. Yes, that's meg, not gig! Anyway, there are still photos on it, and I can read it with no problems. 12 years so far, not bad! I'm going to hide it away and check in a few years, if I last that long! Probably a better idea than DVD's, cloud storage, etc. Expensive though if you were to use it for all images. Also, I'm not sure about the longevity of solid-state hard drives either. As far as I know these memories depend on glass insulation to keep the charge alive or something like that... there are 2 possible problems here, 1 is radiation affecting the charge directly or just natural decay through other resistive paths, or 2 something that activates the write mode by mistake E.G. something biasing it to the "on" state. Anything that can be written to can be written in error. Unfortunately I haven't kept up with this technology... IIRC Flash and EPROMS rely on floating gate. Typically electrons are pumped into (or out of) an insulated region using a higher voltage than needed to read the device. In the case of EPROMs erasure was achieved by exposure to short wavelength UV light. Absorbed photons raised the potential of electrons in the atom concerned above the potential need to escape the floating gate quantum mechanically. In the case of Flash (or one time EPROMs in plastic packages) and electromagnetic radiation that can penetrate the case (X-ray, gamma rays etc.) can gradually erase the memory. |
#10
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Of interest to digital photographers with flash memory
R. Mark Clayton wrote:
One time burnt CD's are likely to be the longest term and most stable offline format for a number of reasons: - 1. Chemically, physically and electrically stable media. 2. Large transition area. 3. Despite debuting in 1985, CD's remain readable in current [backwards compatible] drives. If I had to bet, I'd not bet on CD but on M-Disk. Or on punch tape made out of very stable materials, but that's very costly for larger amounts of data and readers aren't that widely available. -Wolfgang |
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