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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 7th, 2023

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  • I have loads of DVDs and a lot more VHS tapes but you don’t exactly keep watching the same thing over and over again, except a few favorites. Buying a mediocre movie just to watch once will have you thinking about how much it’s worth the space and money.

    OTOH, here at least, you are allowed to have/create a backup of your media, so having rips of those is no issue and they are more convenient.


  • They key is to diversify. Use different types of storage media, and duplicate your efforts and bury then duplicates somewhere else.

    If you can choose only 1 I would choose tape archives. Vacuum seal all your media, whatever they may be. Throw in some of those dehumidifier packets. Moisture will be your biggest enemy.

    If possible, also add the means to be able to read your media after a long time. Add a couple of raspberry pi computers, vacuum sealed and dehumidified-by-packets again, and usb readers or HATs for the media you chose (though I doubt you will find a cheap tape drive with USB connection, the only option I found was £9000).

    Over the years, as new technology gets developed, in particularly interface connectors that will replace USB, I would add converters if possible or just keep them around. Nothing suspicious about having some USB/sata/sas to <new technology> converter in your house.

    Or, you know, you could always go with m-disc. Burners are cheap (40€ to 160€) and discs are cheap (4x 100GB costs 100€). For potentially 140€ you could store 400GB on a solid solution. Would still add a reader and devices as described above.