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[Admiral Wonderboat] Physical Media Forever
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Spoiler
Jen is loading DVD's into a donation box. Admiral: Stop!! You can't get rid of our DVD's! What if the streaming sites go down?! - Admiral: What'll we watch if there's an apocalypse? The NEWS?! Jen: You're right! DVD's are essential for survival! - Admiral: We still have a DVD player, right? Jen: I mean... probably
If only physical digital media would actually last "forever" ... I think magnetic harddrives that aren't in constant use actually have the most longevity of common digital mediums.
Tapes beat spinning disks.
Here is a source I didn't read: https://www.howtogeek.com/858426/whats-the-best-way-to-store-data-for-decades-or-centuries/
My actual source is "used to professional care about longevity".
Let's do a laser-engraving into glass. Would be hard to beat that.
Too brittle. Fused quartz might work. Has high Mohs and doesn't degrade for billions of years.
I did specify common medium. How many people have a tape drive at home? And IMO that article is missing information about how long those magnetic spinning disks last if you keep them powered off most of the time, like tapes.
There is a reason tape storage was used for archival backup over traditional spinny disks.