2 comments

  • mune2gu-chan 2 hours ago
    It's easy to forget that preserving digital data often comes down to keeping aging physical media alive. Nice practical guide.
    • jandrese 1 hour ago
      Generally it's easier to just copy the data to each new media as you adopt it. In the past this was pretty easy to do as the hard drive held way more data than the floppy disks of old. The next hard drive was an order of magnitude larger than the old one, and so on. Unfortunately this sputtered out during the SSD transition and became even more ephemeral as people started putting data in the cloud where it will eventually be wiped when the accounts stop being paid or lost when the company goes under.
      • mystifyingpoi 19 minutes ago
        > when the company goes under > when the accounts stop being paid

        I've never experienced such case, did you?

        Something much more likely is for a person to drop their phone into the toilet, buy a new one, and completely lose access to their only backup which is Google Photos, because they don't own a computer anymore and it is their only device.

        • biofox 6 minutes ago
          I lost the only recordings of my band when Myspace Music died.

          At one point, I also had files on RapidShare. They probably weren't of any value, but I have no idea what they were now.

      • ant6n 32 minutes ago
        Dropbox has been around for a while (cue that old hacker news comment)
  • gnabgib 2 hours ago
    Where'd you get the title from? It's just Copy That Floppy! (maybe +Imaging floppy disks for long-term preservation if it fits)