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!

On 2012-08-09 19:27 , wrote:

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!

Write instructions into your will that the card has to be checked and
results published here.


--
"Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities."
-Samuel Clemens.

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.

"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.

"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.

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.

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...

"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.

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.

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