Was: Re: Sulphur crested Cockatoo(s) & Recording
> Maybe some recordists can weigh in on a debate going on here. Is it
> better to record my data from the solid state recorder to CDs for
> storage or would it be better to collect a stack of SD cards?
Mike,
I have inside information from my son who works with flash storage
chips as used by cards, internal and removable. He says to expect some
deterioration in data from about 3 months. This is slight and just the
odd bit here or there which wouldn't be obvious on recordings, but on
data or file headers it could corrupt. This deterioration is partly
due to cosmic rays which hit us at about 20 per second and higher in
aircraft.
Disc drives corrupt occasionally and one of my two 2T backup drives
did this a fortnight ago. I keep double backups with one drive kept
somewhere else. The most secure long term storage is CDs and DVDs,
especially archive quality discs. Nobody knows how long they will last
as it is in many years, but the biggest long term risk seems to be
technical redundancy. Anyone still use Zip discs? :-)
David
David Brinicombe
North Devon, UK
Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum - Ambrose Bierce
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