At the Archiving 2011 Conference a paper was presented titled, “How Long Is Long-Term Data Storage?”, in which the author summarized the state of archival digital data storage. This paper covered causes of failure, the life expectancy of the data with the storage methods available at the time, format obsolescence, and current research into archival storage. With that paper being about 13 years old now, it is time for an update. This paper will discuss the same topics covered in the previous work, including failure, life expectancy, format obsolescence, as well as current research in all 4 of the primary data storage methods used today (hard-disk drives, solid-state drives or flash memory, optical discs, and ½” magnetic tape. It ends with a discussion of our current research on a human-readable, high-density storage medium.
Barry M. Lunt, Daniel Kemp, Matthew R. Linford, Wood Chiang, "How Long Is Long-Term? - An Update" in Archiving Conference, 2024, pp 56 - 59, https://doi.org/10.2352/issn.2168-3204.2024.21.1.11