What digital storage can retain information the longest? Recordable CD/DVDs only last a couple of years. A decade at most. Barring catastrophic disk failures, HDs seem to last the longest, but what about Flash Memory? These types of memories are increasing in capacity rapidly and they don't have any moving parts.
Name:
les aptt2005-09-21 3:58
It's gonna depend on how often the media's accessed, and more to the point how long before it's obsolete. Even if the media's still intact you need a method to read it. How may out there still have access to a working 5.25 floppy drive? That flash drive may retain data for, let's say 100yrs. Will USB still be in use? Doubt it. You also need the software to read it, the OS that underlies that software yada, yada... .
This is a serious problem already for archivists and it's only gonna get worse.