How to keep our personal data still available for the next generations?
Jeremie Berrebi
VC/Private Equity Investor (300+ companies), Corporates / Family Offices Advisor-Serial Entrepreneur
I have more than 40000 pictures stored in Apple Photos on my Mac. I'm making a backup of them on my Synology with two hard drives, on Backblaze and some on Google Photos.
Hard to know if my grandchildren will have any chance to have access to them in 20/40 years.
Many things could happen by then. I could lose my credentials to this services. Services like Google Photos or Backblaze could be discontinued. My hard drives could burn. My Mac could crash.
You could tell me that I can also use Box.net or Dropbox but who knows what will happen to this companies? Who knows if my grandchildren will want to pay to keep the data available? Who know if my grandchildren will have any access to it?
My parents are still able to show me pictures of them as children that they have on paper, but we lose all the movies we recorded and stored on VHS Tapes. We lose audio recorded on Compact Cassettes. DVD-R should have a life expectancy of 100 to 200 years but I'm sure we will have surprises. DVD-RW have a life expectancy of 25 years only.
The post I'm currently typing on LinkedIn could disappear in 10 years when Microsoft will be bought by Facebook and when Facebook decides to discontinue Linkedin. (Would be better for them to discontinue Facebook ;))
I love reading books on paper. I love history because it's the best way to understand mistakes of the past, and not make them again.
I'm really afraid that most of the content of our generation and future ones will just be lost forever.
The great non-profit project Archive.org is trying to keep a backup of all the internet, books, games, important TV shows but is not able to store all the content posted in our social networks, and more, all our personal data that we are storing on our computer. It’s more likely to be lost than print on paper.
Is this one the solution? Print everything? Bury them under our garden and wait for historians or family to find them again in a few centuries?
Would love your suggestions and opinions!
PS: You can also follow me on Twitter @JBerrebi
Rare Diamonds ?? PDG, Gemmologue
7 年Really a problem But from my parents and grandparents I have few pictures and lives with that well Now we are used to thousands I think I will do a paper album of the best ones in few copies and that should be enough to pass on
Senior Software Application Development Engineer
7 年Store personal data in SSDs could be a good option.
Retired Director, Eastern Region - Kohler Energy And Consultant on the Industrial Power Systems Market
7 年Thanks for scaring me! :-)
Binary Wizard ????♂?| Computer Engineering Professional
7 年Nothing beats good old fashioned printed pictures as backup. That is one "hard medium" that can endure for some time
noctambule diurne
8 年I read about Carbon Molecular Encryption and I think this is the key to mass and long term storage.