Memorecover Data Recovery Service

• How long can we expect data to last for in the modern, digital age?

• What is the most secure media to store important data on?

• Let's compare data storage technologies, ancient and modern...

1. Cave Paintings

Cave paintings are the oldest human records known to exist. They are pictorial representations of their time and pre-date any written language. Some of them are 30,000 to 40,000 years old and still able to be read. This is without the benefit of modern backup and archiving technology. Nothing in today's digital age can last anything like this amount of time!

2. Stone Tablets

Stone and clay tablets have also proved to be extremely durable over time. They are the earliest known form of written language and some examples have lasted for 5000 years. They have good, natural protection from accidents and natural disasters such as fire and floods. Their disadvantage is lack of portability and low data storage capacity...

3. Vellum and Papyrus

The earliest paper documents were made from papyrus reeds by the Ancient Egyptians. The earliest surviving examples date from around 3000BC, but it is believed to have been used as early as 4000BC. Although some examples of papyrus have survived into the modern era it is not a particularly durable material. Vellum was invented around 180BC in Pergamum when the King was refused further supplies of papyrus from Egypt for his library. It was made from animal skins and is more durable than papyrus - it can easily last 900 years given the right storage conditions. The Domesday book, written in 1086, is a good example of a vellum manuscipt and is remarkably well preserved.

4. Photographic Prints

The history of photography dates from the 1840s. Many photographs from this era still survive today. Given the right storage conditions, photographic prints can be preserved for 150 years or more. Negatives can last even longer as they are usually stored in the dark. Prints are often on display and, as photography is a light-sensitive process, they can fade as they are exposed to the light.

5. Film

Film is extremely sensitive to storage conditions and can, typically, last from 50 - 100 years. Some of the older celluloid material is extremely flammable and becomes more unstable with age. A great deal of important archive material from the history of filmmaking has been lost for this reason.

6. Magnetic Tape

Magnetic tape was the first data storage medium to bridge the divide between analogue and digital. Audio recording on magnetic tape dates from around the 1930s. The first machines were reel-to-reel recorders before cassettes became available in the 1970s. Professional video recording was pioneered in the 1950s and domestic recorders have been available since the 1970s. The 1950s saw magnetic tape being used to store data for mainframe computers. Early home computers in the late 1970s and early 1980s used audio tape to store data in digital format. DAT backup tapes were widely avialable by the late 1980s. A range of tape formats are still widely used for data backup today. The life expectancy of any magnetic tape recording is in the region of 5 to 30 years, with digital tapes at the lower end of this scale.

7. Magnetic Disks

Computer hard disks have been widely used since the early 1980s when Seagate introduced the 5MB ST-506. Recent developments in the technology mean that we now have capacities in excess of 500GB on a single drive. Magnetic hard disks are still the primary storage component on most modern computers. Floppy disk drives, 5.25" and 3.5", were popular for a long time in home and small business computers. They were a convenient way of transferring data between computers and also used a magnetic disk. Most modern computers no longer have a disk drive to fit them, but they are still used occassionally. All magnetic disks last from 3 to 15 years. Floppy disks are at the lower end of this scale as the disk surface is more accessible and can be damaged easily. Even hard disks can fail in a short number of years. This can be catastrophic if hundreds of gigabytes of valuable data are stored on a single drive and not backed up elsewhere. Fortunately, we can recover all or most of the data from crashed hard disks in most cases.

8. Optical Discs (CD/ DVD)

One of the problems with floppy disks was their relatively low data storage capacity. 1982 saw CDs were developed for digital audio. They remain the preferred media for audio to this day. CDs later became available with digital data (CD ROM). When writable versions became available (CD-R and CD-RW) they became a viable alternative to floppy disks with a larger capacity (700MB instead of 1.44MB). DVDs were introduced in 1995, originally to store video as an alternative to tape. Shortly afterwards they became available with digital data for non-video applications. In short, DVDs are a high capacity data storage medium that can be used for a number of purposes. At 4.7GB they hold about 6 times the amount of data as a CD, although the physical size of the disc is the same. Writable DVDs are now widely available and can be used for many applications requiring large amounts of data. The durability of CDs and DVDs depends on how they are stored. For example, if the surface is scratched they will no longer be readable. Best estimates for average durability range from 5 to 100 years. Data, including music and video, can be recovered from damaged or unreadable CD and DVD discs but there is no 100% guarantee. Our no data no fee policy applies to these discs as with any other device.

9. Flash Memory

Examples of flash memory are memory cards in digital cameras, MP3 players, games consoles or PDAs. Solid state hard disks and USB thumb drives also fall into this category. Flash technology was invented in 1984. Early products had relatively low data storage capacity and were very expensive. The last few years has seen the cost of the technology reduce, storage capacity increase and the number of available devices increase. A further advantage of flash memory devices is that they have no moving parts. Hard disks, floppy disks, CDs and DVDs all have moving parts in the devices themselves of the drives required to read them. Rather than estimating in years the durability of flash memory is measured in read/ write cycles. In short, every time you use the device you shorten its life. As a guide, single layer devices should last about 100,000 read/ write cycles but multi-layer devices may only last 10,000 to 15,000 read/ write cycles. It is possible to recover data from flash memory devices if files have been accidentally deleted, the device has been formatted or data has been lost due to virus attack.

• What is the best way to store important data for the long term?
• How can we get around the problem of storage media only lasting for a few years?

There is the additional problem of needing to have something capable of reading data from the device. Few computers nowadays have 5.25" floppy disk drives. What would you do if you needed to read data from one of these disks? Moving a bit closer to the present time - fewer computers even have 3.5" floppy disk drives. Most offices and many homes have disks of this size. Do you have a computer that can still read them if you had to get data off them? If so, what about 5 years from now? What about old videos on VHS tape? How long are players still going to be available and working?

The answer is to regularly archive material onto newer media. The advantage of digital data (i.e. anything stored on a computer, CD, DVD or memory card) is that it is possible to make perfect copies onto other media.

Copying analogue audio tapes, film or video tapes onto CD or DVD results in some loss of quality, but it still worth doing as it makes a better job of preserving the data than leaving the originals to slowly decay. Once copied into some sort of digital format future copies will not lose any more quality.

Memorecover can assist with archiving data of any type. We can copy audio tapes, video tapes and film onto CD or DVD. We can back up old computer disks of any type. Most importantly, we can recover data from computers disks that have failed and rebuild your computer if required.

Whatever your requirements, contact us for a free quotation.