Only fools rely solely on "the cloud."

In article , RJH wrote:

it's far more likely that any physical media you own will fail or lost
due to fire/flood/theft/etc., versus a cloud service. it's not possible
for anyone to match the uptime and reliability and geographical
diversification of a cloud service without spending a *lot* of money.

And yet I've been doing that for decades and the cost keeps going down
and the redundancy goes up. None of it in the cloud at all.

it's nowhere near as reliable as the cloud, some of which offer 11 9s
of reliability.

I use Dropbox and Apple Cloud as conveniences, never as backup.

meanwhile, many people use those as a backup, along with amazon,
google, microsoft and many others.

the key is never to have only one copy of anything.


Isn't that the key, with the proviso that both copies are kept somewhere
reasonably secure and integrity checked?

both?

two copies is obviously better than one, but nowhere near ideal.

at a minimum, there should be three copies, with one off site,
preferably, more than that.

cloud services make that incredibly easy and are significantly more
reliable than hard drives kept locally.

the issue is bandwidth to/from the cloud. local hard drives are faster.

Obsessing about the failure of something quite reliable is not a good
use of time IMO.

that too.

In article , RJH wrote:

Besides, it is irrelevant what the document was. Any physical document
(could easily have been an old shopping list) that has survived 800
years has lasted a lot longer than any digital document has, so far.

only because digital didn't exist 800 years ago.

Only time will tell how volatile digital storage actually is (or was,
if someone is reading this 800 years from now).

digital is not volatile.


I think it needs to be thought of in terms of access and retrieval. Say
all digital data created is available in 800 years. Issues related to
finding, reading and interpreting will be key.

it's significantly easier and faster to find stuff online today than it
was in the past, before the internet.

And I'd guess the results would be far less useful than equivalent print
copies available today.

more useful, because it will be instant.

In article , arlen holder
wrote:

Your method of storing pesonal files REQUIRES putting them on the net.

nope.

In article ,
Whisky-dave wrote:

Besides, it is irrelevant what the document was. Any physical document
(could easily have been an old shopping list) that has survived 800
years has lasted a lot longer than any digital document has, so far.

only because digital didn't exist 800 years ago.

what do you mean by digital didn't exist ?

just what i said.

800 years ago, there were no computers, hard drives, internet, mobile
phones, cameras, tape recorders, etc.

Only time will tell how volatile digital storage actually is (or was,
if someone is reading this 800 years from now).

digital is not volatile.

It can still be destroyed though.

anything can be destroyed.

the more copies there are, the closer to zero it is.

Never zero though

nothing is zero, not even for the magna carta.

one match and it's gone.

One hacker, one fire, one hurricane, one bomb, one press of the delete
button etc... and we have a corrupt data or no data at all.

in which case, you retrieve a copy from a backup. no big deal.

with digital you HAVE to have a backup.

with *anything* you have to have a backup.

the problem is you *can't* back up physical goods.

at best, you can make a copy, but there will be a generational loss,
plus it's time consuming and expensive, so it's not normally done.

On Wed, 20 Mar 2019 10:05:20 -0400, nospam wrote:

Your method of storing pesonal files REQUIRES putting them on the net.

nope.

Hi nospam,

Everything you say is almost always a page out of their marketing playbook.
o Just like a cows in a vast herd being led by that Apple/Google nose ring.

In article ,
Whisky-dave wrote:

Those that painted in the caves didnlt seem to think they needed a backup and
pictures of animals they drew can still be pretty much identified after 1000s
of years, try that with myspace and it's just 12 years.

they've degraded, sometimes intentionally:

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e.../chinese-schoo
lboy-15-exposed-as-egypt-s-ancient-temple-graffiti-vandal-8633556.html
The parents of a Chinese teenager who scratched his name into a
3,500-year-old Egyptian artwork have apologised for his actions after
internet users tracked down the boy to name and shame him.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-wiltshire-31584718
Call for Stonehenge access ban to curb 'annual vandalism'
....
The Heritage Journal said the monument was daubed with graffiti,
stuck with chewing gum and marked with oil.

On Tue, 19 Mar 2019 21:57:24 -0400, nospam
wrote:

In article , MC
wrote:


Besides, it is irrelevant what the document was. Any physical document
(could easily have been an old shopping list) that has survived 800
years has lasted a lot longer than any digital document has, so far.

only because digital didn't exist 800 years ago.

Only time will tell how volatile digital storage actually is (or was,
if someone is reading this 800 years from now).

digital is not volatile.

But it's media is.




the more copies there are, the closer to zero it is.

Never zero though

nothing is zero, not even for the magna carta.

one match and it's gone.

One hacker, one fire, one hurricane, one bomb, one press of the delete
button etc... and we have a corrupt data or no data at all.

in which case, you retrieve a copy from a backup. no big deal.

since a copy is 100% identical to what was deleted, nothing is lost.

if it's in the cloud, then that happens without you even noticing.

Whether it is analogue, digital or just plain primative, any type of
data/recording is prone to destruction in the right circumstance.

with digital, the 'right circumstances' are *very* unlikely, on the
order of total destruction of the planet.
--

Regards,

Eric Stevens

On Wed, 20 Mar 2019 10:05:20 -0400, nospam
wrote:

In article , RJH wrote:

Besides, it is irrelevant what the document was. Any physical document
(could easily have been an old shopping list) that has survived 800
years has lasted a lot longer than any digital document has, so far.

only because digital didn't exist 800 years ago.

Only time will tell how volatile digital storage actually is (or was,
if someone is reading this 800 years from now).

digital is not volatile.


I think it needs to be thought of in terms of access and retrieval. Say
all digital data created is available in 800 years. Issues related to
finding, reading and interpreting will be key.

it's significantly easier and faster to find stuff online today than it
was in the past, before the internet.

Umm, almost by definition, it was almost impossible to find anything
on line before the Internet.

And I'd guess the results would be far less useful than equivalent print
copies available today.

more useful, because it will be instant.

For certain values of 'instant'.
--

Regards,

Eric Stevens

In article , Eric Stevens
wrote:

Only time will tell how volatile digital storage actually is (or was,
if someone is reading this 800 years from now).

digital is not volatile.

But it's media is.

yep, however, that makes absolutely no difference whatsoever.

since there can be an unlimited number of identical copies, if one
fails, there are many others. no big deal.

In article , Eric Stevens
wrote:

I think it needs to be thought of in terms of access and retrieval. Say
all digital data created is available in 800 years. Issues related to
finding, reading and interpreting will be key.

it's significantly easier and faster to find stuff online today than it
was in the past, before the internet.

Umm, almost by definition, it was almost impossible to find anything
on line before the Internet.

that's the point.

people now carry the world's knowledge in their pocket.

And I'd guess the results would be far less useful than equivalent print
copies available today.

more useful, because it will be instant.

For certain values of 'instant'.

a few seconds, if that long, is instant, and that is only going to be
faster in the future.

perhaps you're still waiting for the google app to load...