A friendly remainder: you will loose your data

[mrdelurk]

I pondered for a long time whether I should make this public, but I think you should know it. You will loose your data.

Not the data you did not back up, and lost in a HD crash. No. The data you promptly backed up. You can do everything right, you will loose it anyway.

A scenario: you buy some product, the disc looks flimsy, so you back up a copy with the backup app of the day. To be on the safe side, you don't just keep a copy on HD, you also back it up to tape. And then you even burn an extra disc. If this doesn't make you safe, nothing will, right?

This is exactly my point. Nothing will. I did all these steps with some sound libraries I bought in the 90's. Here's the results, 20 years later: the CDs already failed, over time some sort of slime seems to have developed on them, not to mention the scratches from normal use. The HD carrying the files crashed at least a decade ago. I got the backup tapes, but the SCSI card tape drives require died. Fine, I bought another SCSI card on eBay! I restored the files with it - they are ShrinkWrap images. The company who wrote ShrinkWrap has nothing that opens those on any present day computer. So I pulled out from mothballs the dagnabbit Mac G4 I made those files on. It's dead.

The field results are in: you can't win. You can do everything right as I did, keep more backup copies than the NASA, even store away the original computer, you'll loose your data. I know now we have the cloud too; you hear of a different problem that hit it every other day. It's just one more thing that can and will loose your files.

What can one do to escape this no-win? The only way I found... ho boy, will I be hit with a ****storm for saying it. But here it is: long after the company I bought the sound libraries from quit, long after all the physical discs succumbed to... whatever this is that's eating them, I was able to find a pirate copy of the libraries I once bought, and it works. So as long as whatever one buys (or produces) exists in pirated form too, it's apparently decay-proof; to become immortal is, ironically, to become pirated.

Having stated the plain facts I ran into, I'll end this post without advocating anything pro or contra. Thank you.

[Jack McOck]

This is why I always buy two pairs of the same shoes. That way if I like them, I'll have a second pair to last me forever.

[LoopStationZebra]

Did someone say something?

ffs

[Angstrom]

I have all the Alesis MMT8 backup tapes, and I also have the disk backups from the Emu E64, and for later works I have the optical disks, the jazz drives, and the zip drives. All of my pro24 songs are safely duplicated on double sided double density floppies.

I think I'm safe bro.



(none of this shit loads)

[avart]

A great reminder!

I lost some midi-tracks in hd crash in 2000, but I had at least some audio-recordings of them so they are still around in some form. All the rest of my early tracks - made in an old workstation - are transfered over to midi-files. A small, general data-format that's less tied to specific hardware/software...

I own less stuff nowadays, most of my stuff is actually data in various forms, so I keep multuple back ups on various forms of media storage... I hope I can use my data as long as I would like to, but of course multiple forms of migration will be needed in the future...

My biggest gripe/problem/fear is what will happen to all lo-res digital pictures. When all computers uses quadrillion retina hi-res super 4D screens - will a little 640 x 480 pic even be watchable? (more than as a little tiny dot or a megablurred upscaled rectangle of some random colours?)...

[knotkranky]

Yep, we went thru an explosion in formats and devices during that period. Redundant storage is cheap, easy and much friendlier these days. Format wars are largely calmer. Should be worry free for a good while.

[pulsoc]

Time Machine.

[mrdelurk]

Additional information: I notice a pattern. All the backup CDs that failed are of the Prime Peripherals brand. (CompUSA used to sell those.)

Prime Periperals is a brand of OKie Corporation, run by Tim R. Wofford, according to this FTC Complaint.

[locknar]

.

[#1thelark]

Just hum the songs you lost into live and then audio to midi...problem solved.
Maybe you can print screenshots of your arrangements and then recreate it later?
Though it will be hard to print the groove. And no one but beardyman can save samples in his mind.

I kept all my computers until today. The C64 works just fine, any of the pcs with a harddisk is likely to fail.

[re:dream]

Just hum the songs you lost into live and then audio to midi...problem solved.
Maybe you can print screenshots of your arrangements and then recreate it later?
Though it will be hard to print the groove. And no one but beardyman can save samples in his mind.

I kept all my computers until today. The C64 works just fine, any of the pcs with a harddisk is likely to fail.

I have said it before and I will say it again.

This forum needs a 'like' button.

[SuburbanThug]

I have said it before and I will say it again.

This forum needs a 'like' button.

Just post one of these bad boys. It's only four extra clicks and a few keystrokes away and the extra work shows just how much you like the comment.

[Forge.]

I carried various different backups around with me for years, then I came to the conclusion that most of it was shit anyway and if they were any good I could either do them again better or would have already done something with them.

[3osc]

The loneliest remainder is 10÷?81. But, thanks to the friendly remainder, I have found the need to tighten the screws on my hard drive. No more loose data.

The day is mine, Trebek!

[ian_halsall]

I carried various different backups around with me for years, then I came to the conclusion that most of it was shit anyway and if they were any good I could either do them again better or would have already done something with them.

word