What sort of HDD & media for long term storage ?

[kirby7777]

I am going to digitalise many many cassettes of SVHS-C tapes and archive them in Taiyo Yuden DVD-Rs and a couple of HDDs. Those DVD-R would contain DVD-video playable in ordinary DVD player. Those in HDDs would be in MPEG2 files format. This could be retrieved and edited, if necessary, to make new DVD-Video in the future.

So there would be two sets of HDDs (with Mpeg2 files) and they are mirror of each other and one set of DVD-R (in DVD-video format).

A second set of DVD-R with those MPEG2 files (instead of DVD-video format) are being considered at the moment.

I will be doing end to end digitisation of the tapes with no editing made to the DV avi files or the subsequent mpeg2 files.

The digitisation process would go like this :

SVHS player --> Canopus ADVC 300 --> WinDV 1.2.3 capture to computer via firewire port --> encoding DV avi files to mpeg2 files --> DVD authoring --> burning to DVD-Rs

DV avi files would be encode with TMPGEnc or Canopus Procoder 2 into Mpeg2 files.

Since I stopped using SVHS-C over two years ago, I have started to use miniDV tapes. They would be archived as above but skipping the Canopus ADVC 300 digitalisation stage.

After digitalisation of the video I would then do digitalisation of all the photos, negatives, and slides. Once again, one set would be in DVD-R and another one in the HDDs.

Once archived, those material would be stored in lockers in bank vault and probably won't be accessed for many years because I would have another copy in DVD-Rs kept in the house.

The HDDs would probably be in the size of 400-500 Gb. Some says it would be more economical to get the 320Gb size.

I would prefer SATA drives.

Based on the above storage requirement, what made and model of HDDs would be most suitable? Would TY DVD-R media be suitable too?

Suggestions welcome.

Now come the most important question:

*****
If a relatively new HDD has not been used for 15-20 years, what is the risk of it not being able to function properly in one way or another? eg not spinning up, no able to read and/or write, circuit board malfunction etc etc
*****

I once bought a mpeg card with video capture and TV reception function many years ago (full length ISA card). Tested it and it was working fine. Didn't have to use it for well over 5 years. Took it out one day and it could not work anymore...... Wonder if the circuit board of any devices is meant to be used from time to time otherwise it would just die one day? I am fearing that the HDDs might suffer the same fate.

I have asked around a bit and many said that I should refresh the media by
1) reburn the DVD-Rs every now and then eg every two years
2) Transfer the files in HDDs to new ones every few years.

Appreciate your opinions on various issues above.

[Denvers Dawgs]

Dvds should last atleast 15years if not more. (when quality dvds are used, and when stored and kept properly) So I'd say no need for reburns every 2 years. Of course you can occasionally check the quality of a few random dvds every no and again, and then decide if you should reburn (media failing).

For HDD's I reccomend Seagate. They are very reliable and have a 5year waranty if anything were to go wrong. If you are just storing info on the HDD that won't be needed daily. I reccomend also buying an external case from newegg. My understanding is since your not running the HDD 24/7 it will last much longer than any HDD placed in your PC. (atleast that's what I understand an do with my externals)

Since you are backing up VHS (which maybe irreplaceable family memories I would also burn a 2nd set. (possibly on a secon brand of media (media code). blank dvds are cheap enough now that it wouldn't hurt.

[ark]

My understanding and experience is as below:-
1) Life of Electronics without moving parts :- The item which generally goes defective is the electrolytic capacitor. Some electronic cards recover if the electrolytic capacitors are renewed. This is true provided the items have been stored/used at the proper temperature. High operating temperatures could lead to extremely fast failure of slicon chips through metal migration (as happened with initial P4 chips)
2) Items like HDD:- Not only the above, but all items like the head movement, disk spinning mech parts are subject to wear and would finally fail. MTBF is a figure given by the manufacturers which is a statistical figure and would apply to majority of the items in a population of similar items - this would be the life to be expected for the HDD if it is being used safely and continuously. If it is not being used, then we are again talking about degradation of the electrolytes (if any).
3) Any magnetic media storage is bound to loose the data over a period of time - inherent property of rewritable magnetic storage.
4) The only option for storage which is supposed to be much more stable is optical media. But here again, inspite of accelerated tests carried out by companies like Kodak etc giving a life of 30Years to 100years, the practical experience has not been as good. I have used Kodak gold CD-Rs only to find the whole metal + die layer flaking and peeling off after a few years!!!! For other brand media, in some cases, I found the media cannot be read by the drive after a few years - I suspect the dye layer is the culprit in this case.

So the best solution in my view is to have multiple backups on optical media, both for the assets(mpeg2 files, dv files, project files, the software for authoring) and for the authored disks. Fresh multiple backups should be created every few years. The disks should be stored in controlled environment of temperature / humidity. To make sure that the data coming out of these backups is in good shape, some self checking archiving method like WinRAR-ing the data could be considered. At least the assets could be RARed and stored on optical media - including breaking up large files onto small RAR chunks - with multiple backups, there is a very high probability that the data would be possible to recover (from multiple backups) anyhow.

If the data is extremely valuable then one has to think of other optical base media - like getting the data onto glass substrates instead of normal polycarbonate disks used for the CD-Rs or DVD-Rs or for the forthcoming HD-DVD or BRDVD - and then bury these in controlled environment in independent/ secure geographically distant (separate continents even) locations.

[SingSing]

Media on tape and Disc, will eventually failed. Tape last better than disc, and you also work around the section of tape that have problem. On the disc formats, CD last better than DVD. The DVD RAM and R/W lasts better than +/-R.

On the harddisk format, You may want to look into online storage. They use mirror storage like bussiness to ensure there is at least one working copy of your data.

[samijubal]

DVD-RAM lasting longer, yes supposedly. RW longer than R, nada.

[kirby7777]

RW longer than R, nada.

Interesting.

Thanks for all the reply. Anyone else has any comments?

[piano632]

If you're really worried about failing discs, you can try the gold DVD's by Mitsui/MAM-A:
http://www.cdrom2go.com/product-moreinfo.asp?P=M58049031502018X83437&engine=google&KW=...FTM7GgoddwyXpQ

Or Maxell's "broadcast quality" DVD's:
http://www.tapeonline.com/store/product.asp?dept_id=1262&pf_id=VMP-DVD-RBQ

Of course, both of these discs also have a premium price of $2-3 per DVD.

[lordsmurf]

I suggest at least 2-3 good discs, different types from different manufacturers. And then Seagate/WD hard drives and DAT/DV tapes won't hurt either.

Re-copy to newer media in 5-10 years, if available.

Tape last better than disc, and you also work around the section of tape that have problem. .

Not really true.
Read this: http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/longevity.htm

That tape lasts longer than disc or is any easier to recover data is mostly myth. It's recent myth too, last 12-18 months, lots of dribble in the press from questionable sources. Optical media has a lot of things going for it that tape does not.

[handyguy]

Better store a computer or dvd player that can read them. I don't expect much of todays electronics to be around in 20 years.

[SingSing]

I am going to digitalise many many cassettes of SVHS-C tapes.

The person started the post was talking about preserving video already on tapes.

1. Tape lasts longer than disc :
From your refering link : "At the other end of the spectrum are consumer formats like VHS, which start to degrade within 10-25 years." 10-25 years is much better number than most DVDR, which last 2~10 years.

2. Tape does not have outright failure.
There are no such thing as "coaster" in tape technology.

3. Tape can be fixed.
If you can't fixed a broken tape, get help. There are a lot of people who can, with scissor and tape.