Ancient vs modern data storage

[Any_Name_Does]

My question is, is what we call progress really what it is?
Thousands of years ago, our ancestors used stone and nail to store information, which after so much time is still perfectly legible. Look at the junk we have now called hi-tech. leave the drive unused for a few years and all info is destroyed. what a culture are we leaving behind? :awe:

 

[RebateMonger]

Doesn't matter, since most of today's data consists of photos of Britney Spears.

 

[Nothinman]

Doesn't matter, since most of today's data consists of photos of Britney Spears.

You don't want to inflict images of her unspeakables on future archaeologists?

 

[frostedflakes]

Could stone and chisel keep up with the vast amount of information that is generated today? Would stone and chisel allows us to transport information around the globe in a fraction of a second? etc.

 

[Any_Name_Does]

Could stone and chisel keep up with the vast amount of information that is generated today? Would stone and chisel allows us to transport information around the globe in a fraction of a second? etc.

good points. "lots" of "fast" data. but there is something missing in this equation. :hmm:

 

[CurseTheSky]

Hmm, that gave me a horrible idea.

When I'm buried, I'm going to write some kind of hocus-pocus curse on my tomb for anyone that defiles it. Inside, there'll be some kind of "permanent" storage media of seemingly high importance. It'll contain a repository of those shocking images currently found around the 'net like tub****, g***se, 2 girls... for the future archeologists to discover.

What has been seen cannot be unseen!

 

[Any_Name_Does]

Hmm, that gave me a horrible idea.

When I'm buried, I'm going to write some kind of hocus-pocus curse on my tomb for anyone that defiles it. Inside, there'll be some kind of "permanent" storage media of seemingly high importance. It'll contain a repository of those shocking images currently found around the 'net like tub****, g***se, 2 girls... for the future archeologists to discover.

What has been seen cannot be unseen!

Your points have been taken.
When we find something made thousands of years ago, we value them and have lots of museums dedicated for those objects. But would anyone say that thousands of years from now, people will care for our objects?

I really doubt it. It will likely be the opposite. "How do we get rid of this stuff" :|

 

[taltamir]

I was always bothered when historians declare that "pederasty (homosexual pedophilia) was rampant in ancient greece, to the point where the typical greek man would have a wife for procreation and a young boy as a lover" or "in ancient egypt, their worship of half-animal deities resulted in the glorification and widespread practice of bestiality"... I can only assume that 10,000 years from now out culture would be judged by 4chan and others with similar results.

As far as "ancient storage media laster longer", what a glorious display of ignorance.... forget the benefits of modern storage for a second (size and speed)...
Very little data was EVER chiseled in stone, and that was erased by weathering. Most was either written on scrolls or painted on stone... the paint is long gone except for a few RARE locations where the environment was perfect for storage. Ancient scrolls also did not survive except for when in specific storage conditions (aka, in a pot, in a cave, in the desert, where it is very dry, unexposed to sun, no air flow, and constant temperature; these are not "or" but "ands", the pot is in the cave, the cave is in the desert, etc).
Current optical media could easily last longer in such conditions, and current bookbinding tech produces far superior books that last longer... that is, if made properly. The super cheap "paperback" books wouldn't last a decade... but quality books last a long time.

There is also the issue that the only thing that can really destroy our data, currently, is deliberate and consistent government action or a nuclear holocaust. Otherwise we will just keep on preserving our data digitally, migrating it from one format to another, from one media to another.

 

[RebateMonger]

You don't want to inflict images of her unspeakables on future archaeologists?

To future anthropologists, we'll be known as the "Two Girls, One Cup" era.

 

[Any_Name_Does]

I was always bothered when historians declare that "pederasty (homosexual pedophilia) was rampant in ancient greece, to the point where the typical greek man would have a wife for procreation and a young boy as a lover" or "in ancient egypt, their worship of half-animal deities resulted in the glorification and widespread practice of bestiality"... I can only assume that 10,000 years from now out culture would be judged by 4chan and others with similar results.

As far as "ancient storage media laster longer", what a glorious display of ignorance.... forget the benefits of modern storage for a second (size and speed)...
Very little data was EVER chiseled in stone, and that was erased by weathering. Most was either written on scrolls or painted on stone... the paint is long gone except for a few RARE locations where the environment was perfect for storage. Ancient scrolls also did not survive except for when in specific storage conditions (aka, in a pot, in a cave, in the desert, where it is very dry, unexposed to sun, no air flow, and constant temperature; these are not "or" but "ands", the pot is in the cave, the cave is in the desert, etc).
Current optical media could easily last longer in such conditions, and current bookbinding tech produces far superior books that last longer... that is, if made properly. The super cheap "paperback" books wouldn't last a decade... but quality books last a long time.

There is also the issue that the only thing that can really destroy our data, currently, is deliberate and consistent government action or a nuclear holocaust. Otherwise we will just keep on preserving our data digitally, migrating it from one format to another, from one media to another.

First off, I have a serious problem with your avatar, where you declare yourself as god. Do you mean that, or is it just bs, because if your avatar is bs, I have no way of talking to you in a proper manner. so you, as an individual with a right to talk and express himself, must explain what that is supposed to imply. Once you have done that you will feel better.

 

[WildW]

For the last 10 or 15 years the company I work for has been archiving old documents and data to CDs, kept in jewel cases and locked away in dark cupboards at a well managed temperature.

I've recently taken basically all of them out and tried to copy the contents onto our server. The number of CDs that could not be read in any of multiple drives I tried was nothing short of frightening. Also a bunch of dead Zip disks, Jaz disks, although the few floppies I've run across have been fine by some luck.

I think the only way to keep data longer term is to keep copies on the most up-to-date methods possible. Thankfully everything seems to get bigger and faster as time goes by.

 

[Echo147]

Density trade-off innit. If Mr Caveman had to chisel in rock all the words a 3TB HDD could hold (conservative estimate = 330 billion) he'd need a bigger planet.

And the beauty of modern storage is you could replicate this monstrous amount of information in 8-9 unattended hours.

Gone from CD-R > DVD-R > BD-R here over the past decade, lost maybe 0.05% of data at most. Often toyed with RAID5/6 HDDs exclusively for convenience but am terrified of them long term, holding the primary copy of my data.

Most likely I will once again embrace the next generation of optical discs.

 

[Any_Name_Does]

Density trade-off innit. If Mr Caveman had to chisel in rock all the words a 3TB HDD could hold (conservative estimate = 330 billion) he'd need a bigger planet.

And the beauty of modern storage is you could replicate this monstrous amount of information in 8-9 unattended hours.

Gone from CD-R > DVD-R > BD-R here over the past decade, lost maybe 0.05% of data at most. Often toyed with RAID5/6 HDDs exclusively for convenience but am terrified of them long term, holding the primary copy of my data.

Most likely I will once again embrace the next generation of optical discs.

It seems that you have misunderstood my point. Sorry if that is the case.
I am not saying we should go back to the caveman tech, rather improve on his technical heritage. If his carvings could last 10000 years, ours should last 1000000 years. What we have now is not true technology, as it is based completely on paper. ( money ). Should the economy of the world collapse, which as you probably know is possible, so will the entire so called technology collapse, and you will be thrown back to an era where you would consider the caveman's chisel "hi tech" :twisted::hmm::awe:

 

[taltamir]

For the last 10 or 15 years the company I work for has been archiving old documents and data to CDs, kept in jewel cases and locked away in dark cupboards at a well managed temperature.

I've recently taken basically all of them out and tried to copy the contents onto our server. The number of CDs that could not be read in any of multiple drives I tried was nothing short of frightening. Also a bunch of dead Zip disks, Jaz disks, although the few floppies I've run across have been fine by some luck.

I think the only way to keep data longer term is to keep copies on the most up-to-date methods possible. Thankfully everything seems to get bigger and faster as time goes by.

I have experienced a massive failure rate with similarly archived CDs, it is due to chemical bit rot from the edges of the disk inwards.
Part of the reason for the amount of them that don't work is that writable disks have orders of magnitude shorter lifespan that pressed disks.
If they cannot be read at all it means damage to their table of contents. You need to store it using a smart filesystem, like DVDisaster which includes extra parity and is resistant to any and all damage.
AFAIK it also helps to have 0 humidity (cave in desert) to minimize the chemical degradation of the disks, and to use disks of certain type (disks can have a readable layer made of various organic dyes, lacquers, metals or even glass; just as long as it has alternating consistencies that either reflect or disperse incoming laser light)

A future historian would also be performing a surface scan on pressed disks made out of rather resilient materials (aka, all that survived) stored in just the right environments and recovering fractions of data that is still there but unreadable by regular CDROM drives.
Remember that ancient media did not universally survive, we find one scroll here, a painting there. most are gone forever.

But yes, if you want to keep ALL your data instead of a few select items, you better keep it in rolling storage, transferring it from media to media while keeping backups.

 

[FishAk]

First off, I have a serious problem with your avatar, where you declare yourself as god. Do you mean that, or is it just bs, because if your avatar is bs, I have no way of talking to you in a proper manner. so you, as an individual with a right to talk and express himself, must explain what that is supposed to imply. Once you have done that you will feel better.

I believe god already feels just fine, even without explaining his signature to you. What makes you think your ability or non-ability to talk to him in a proper manor has a bearing on his well being?

It's so funny to see someone without a valid argument, instead respond with a personal attack. It's the classic mark of a liberal, who, of course, knows better than anyone else. ()

 

[Any_Name_Does]

I believe god already feels just fine, even without explaining his signature to you. What makes you think your ability or non-ability to talk to him in a proper manor has a bearing on his well being?

It's so funny to see someone without a valid argument, instead respond with a personal attack. It's the classic mark of a liberal, who, of course, knows better than anyone else. ()

I thought it would be taken as an attack. It was not meant as such. I know a lot of people who say from time to time that they are gods, but it is usually taken as a joke or something. and they only do it among friends. You don't go out and say to strangers, hey I am god. And if you do then you must also expect to be asked for some explanation.