Post B3lQlbsFS6OhmIeaaO by raptor85@mastodon.gamedev.place
(DIR) More posts by raptor85@mastodon.gamedev.place
(DIR) Post #B3lOtyX6tGnKSicypc by foone@digipres.club
2026-02-28T00:39:24Z
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my mother in law wants to know what kind of external drive she should get to store ancestry documents long-term.boy, an archivist is the last person you want to ask that.
(DIR) Post #B3lOwMNfCFB30HLWee by foone@digipres.club
2026-02-28T00:39:49Z
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her: "should I buy a USB stick or an external drive?"me: ALL STORAGE IS CONSTANTLY DECAYING AND CANNOT BE TRUSTED
(DIR) Post #B3lP7oQNGrDPAI4iS8 by foone@digipres.club
2026-02-28T00:41:52Z
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@whitequark can I get a USB sapphire etcher that my mother-in-law can use, though? :)
(DIR) Post #B3lPBhDxyzUJzb7i4W by theorangetheme@en.osm.town
2026-02-28T00:42:07Z
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@foone What about tablets (clay)?
(DIR) Post #B3lPEcmGyJTd4PZAAq by agowa338@chaos.social
2026-02-28T00:42:18Z
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@foone I'd just point them at "M Disc" Blue-rays and say they should make a 2nd copy on a regular HDD and move it to something else in 10 to 15 years...https://www.amazon.de/Verbatim-Blu-ray-Disc-Schreibgeschwindigkeit-Blu-ray-Disks-Audiodateien/dp/B01E0CUU1C
(DIR) Post #B3lPL5g6QvoCROlOjI by agowa338@chaos.social
2026-02-28T00:43:28Z
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@foone I was recently going through old data and leaving stuff laying unpowered for almost 10 years destroys quite a lot of data. CDs/DVDs included (esp. from Warner Bros apparently)
(DIR) Post #B3lPOfHIWvsLikrit6 by foone@digipres.club
2026-02-28T00:43:49Z
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@whitequark wow, the glasgow can do anything!
(DIR) Post #B3lPOkDEBUah1a02jo by foone@digipres.club
2026-02-28T00:44:01Z
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@whitequark bad idea:glasgow to bubble memory applet
(DIR) Post #B3lPUKKHLFomTdxYlU by ann3nova@corteximplant.com
2026-02-28T00:43:57Z
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@foone Tell her she needs to decomp it and print it out in binary.
(DIR) Post #B3lPYYKhCtpN4oAan2 by theorangetheme@en.osm.town
2026-02-28T00:45:12Z
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@foone I was once present for a time capsule opening from 100 years prior. Unfortunately, the subsequent hundred-year time capsule was to include a flash drive. I didn't have the energy to tell them.
(DIR) Post #B3lPbVd7iEIrYxCOQ4 by foone@digipres.club
2026-02-28T00:45:42Z
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I think I'm just going to tell her to get an external spinning-rust drive. They've got decent powered-off stability, and realistically she's going to have the files stored on both her computer and the external drive. (and the internal drive in the computer failing is what scares her)
(DIR) Post #B3lPbbkmwe02YSpbCS by foone@digipres.club
2026-02-28T00:46:07Z
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I could tell her to use an online backup service but for legal reasons I cannot recommend any of those anymore
(DIR) Post #B3lPgyvyBjo3tZcjMO by foone@digipres.club
2026-02-28T00:46:34Z
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@theorangetheme yeah, that's... that's absolutely not going to work.
(DIR) Post #B3lPmyqrPKktNS5u2i by theZosia@mastodon.com.pl
2026-02-28T00:49:15Z
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@foone RAID?
(DIR) Post #B3lPtK4xOiXqwyiD4q by agowa338@chaos.social
2026-02-28T00:50:23Z
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@foone Or get her a tape drive and some LTO tapes. Then throwing them a bit too hard isn't an issue either.And from previous work experience even average users are quite able to work with LTO tapes (maybe even bette as they're probably already used to video tapes and such anyway...)
(DIR) Post #B3lPwPDkjk4NlZIQnw by foone@digipres.club
2026-02-28T00:51:01Z
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she's too far away for my to admin a RAID NAS or similar and honestly I don't really want to.
(DIR) Post #B3lQA98vJKRxxJabZ2 by agowa338@chaos.social
2026-02-28T00:53:26Z
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@foone Well you could just tell them to get a DAS with RAID-1 then?You know one of these "attaches via USB and does a RAID-1 internally" thingies where you just slot two HDDs into? I think WD also sold some of them (would have to check though).
(DIR) Post #B3lQDW4CXLrBvBzHii by johnlogic@sfba.social
2026-02-28T00:53:46Z
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@foone for long-term archival: print ink on acid-free paper, single sidedIn digital form: I've had good results with one-time-writable CD-ROM, lasting 30+ years
(DIR) Post #B3lQOCNE60QM1typHc by ChuckMcManis@chaos.social
2026-02-28T00:54:30Z
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@foone Archival BluRay media is a thing. I have often wondered if you could take 12 disks and do a double parity stack. (any two disks could end up unreadable and you could still recover the data). That would be software raid and would take a while to write out. Given the huge size of disks these days I'd consider just writing 12 50GiB images with RAID6 of a .5TB dataset. Recovery would be the reverse, read in the 12 disks and then recover.
(DIR) Post #B3lQRYGh9Gn0nsWXyq by nblr@chaos.social
2026-02-28T00:54:34Z
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@foone Probably the right thing to do here is missing the chance to recommend a tape library - yes.
(DIR) Post #B3lQSZbneO6ZFZsn7g by pipistrelle@chiroptera.space
2026-02-28T00:54:15Z
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@foone You mean she doesn't have access to a laser to engrave a diamond with and a deep underground cave network in the arctic circle?
(DIR) Post #B3lQlbsFS6OhmIeaaO by raptor85@mastodon.gamedev.place
2026-02-28T01:00:08Z
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@foone archival grade BD-r disks, 25GB/disk, store sealed with desiccant for estimated ~100 year lifetime, they run about $1-$2 per disk.
(DIR) Post #B3lRy02fWP6QAB028O by ghouston@mamot.fr
2026-02-28T01:13:31Z
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@foone I'm not sure if Internet Archive is a good long-term choice for public documents, but it will probably last longer than anything I can personally maintain.https://archive.org/
(DIR) Post #B3lSiVtVQbOaGutRFg by lackthereof@beige.party
2026-02-28T01:21:58Z
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@foone yup I think external spinning rust drive is the right answer of you don't want her to constantly recopy optical media as a hedge against bit rot
(DIR) Post #B3lSmtssB0VTpigm1o by foone@digipres.club
2026-02-28T01:22:14Z
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it turns out she mainly wanted to copy files off her computer because her computer was "too slow" (it's an old laptop running windows, of course it's slow. Also, she owned it back when she smoked, I'd be surprised if the fans still spin) and the files she wants to move are "just in case ancestry dot com goes down".mom, unless they nuke utah, ancestry dot com is not going to lose your records
(DIR) Post #B3lTEsRZ7qZPTSFxqK by ukscone@cupoftea.social
2026-02-28T01:27:51Z
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@foone the chances of utah being nuked are not zero. there is a possibility but if it does happen i don't think that she has a copy of the manifest of the ship her great great grandfather arrived on will matter that much
(DIR) Post #B3lTqd1ysU5Og1I5Tc by foone@digipres.club
2026-02-28T01:34:37Z
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@ukscone yeah exactly. it's not impossible, but if it does happen, there will be more to worry about than what your great-great-grandfather's 6th child was named
(DIR) Post #B3lUQbHKs1OZfPcq0m by Sylvhem@eldritch.cafe
2026-02-28T01:41:12Z
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@foone Magnetic tape probably.
(DIR) Post #B3lUawqxVllHTWDq1w by llewelly@sauropods.win
2026-02-28T01:42:58Z
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@foone "Go not to the elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes."
(DIR) Post #B3lUzsUOsCK5BFYeVU by Cadbury_Moose@wandering.shop
2026-02-28T01:47:33Z
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@foone I think they may have ceased manufacture, but the 3.5 inch removable magneto-optical drives were available in 128MB - 2.6 GB, fully backward compatible (apart from the 128MB ones being read-only on the "Gigamo" 1.3 and 2.6 GB drives), IDE and SCSI interfaces on the earlier versions, USB available on later ones, and an estimated 40 year lifespan for the media. (Plus impervious to stray magnetic fields.) I use them (still) for backups. 3:O)> Drive failure might be a future issue. 3:O(>
(DIR) Post #B3lZxR1gVcorCFmTgm by pmc@mastodon.ffcentral.net
2026-02-28T02:43:10Z
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@foone When my mom asked me the best way to preserve the family photos she's been scanning, my advice was to distribute the full set to as many family members as possible. That's ultimately the best way to keep family information like that alive IMO.
(DIR) Post #B3laSKvZEYNbG7eeA4 by foone@digipres.club
2026-02-28T02:48:50Z
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@pmc yeah, maybe I should suggest she get two of them and mail one to us.
(DIR) Post #B3lbV4rnVIPeGolJZI by berniethewordsmith@neopaquita.es
2026-02-28T03:00:28Z
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@foone @ukscone Me when I found Utah's archives mentioned in Spain's syllabus for Archives 😮Me when I searched more about Granite Mountain 😮 😮 😮 😮 😮
(DIR) Post #B3ldWygheDj7atbg1I by SuperMoosie@mastodon.au
2026-02-28T03:23:16Z
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@foone Or she could do what my dad has done.Print all of Ancestry.com out and store in folders.Hand draw your family tree, with all 487 relatives. Redraw when you find someone new.
(DIR) Post #B3lgBlgH6z9B2Ez6KO by foone@digipres.club
2026-02-28T03:53:01Z
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@zrb "losing all your data" is A backup strategy, it's just not a good one
(DIR) Post #B3ln1TmdUxPSJK07Qu by tbortels@infosec.exchange
2026-02-28T05:09:35Z
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@foone Ancestry documents: print them on a quality laser printer on acid-neutral paper. Fire safe for storage. No electronic media is sure to be readable 100 years from now, but toner on paper stored in the dark should be fine.
(DIR) Post #B3lwsfIOKHAUwzI2IS by wouter@pleroma.debian.social
2026-02-28T06:18:47.775093Z
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@fooneThe company behind ancestry dot com might go bust though and then you *would* lose everything there...
(DIR) Post #B3lwsfzHknTn61MI9g by foone@digipres.club
2026-02-28T06:59:57Z
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@wouter eh, not really? they've changed hands a bunch, I imagine they'd just get bought by another investment fund and/or the mormon church
(DIR) Post #B3m1FGSlDf3wPUAiBs by shironeko@fedi.tesaguri.club
2026-02-28T07:49:26.066384Z
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@foone Carvera and some stone tablets?