Backing up Legacy

The technical section

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Shortfuse
Posts: 89
Joined: Sun Feb 12, 2006 4:05 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: Backing up Legacy

Post by Shortfuse » Sun Jun 17, 2012 11:47 am

Hi Russell
The older usb drives I use have been kept in old jacked and boiler suit pockets, generally uncared for, thats why I thought they were pretty much indestuctable. Never too old to learn !
regards sf

Currie
Posts: 3924
Joined: Fri Jun 22, 2007 3:20 am
Location: Australia

Re: Backing up Legacy

Post by Currie » Mon Jun 18, 2012 4:16 pm

I think that Russell’s better half’s idea about keeping things on paper is a pretty good one. At least with paper you can put it in the bottom drawer and, barring accidents, it’ll still be readable in one or two hundred years or longer.

The technology we use to store stuff digitally, CDs, DVDs, Hard Drives, Thumb Drives, whatever, probably won’t be readable in 20 years, because there wont be the hardware, and even if there was, there wouldn’t be the software that could read it. Perhaps if it was sent to a specialist company, along with a bucket of money, they would be able to figure it out. So you need to not only keep backups but make sure that your digital records remain reasonably up-to-date in the technical sense.

The biggest danger with paper records is if you have so much of it that it becomes an inconvenience as you get near the end of your allotted years, and especially to those who have to sort things out once your time is up.

All the best,
Alan

Shortfuse
Posts: 89
Joined: Sun Feb 12, 2006 4:05 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: Backing up Legacy

Post by Shortfuse » Mon Jun 18, 2012 5:00 pm

I certainly agree about keeping a paper record ,when I lost the computer records I had a book with names dates etc which was very basic but helped a lot. I also had all the printouts I had produced over the years . Certs from SP were all filed neatly but the rest, which consisted of a small mountain of paper is on the verge of being useless.
Due to naming patterns I have only a small number of names for a large number of individuals and trying to sort them out is verging on the impossible ( for my limited concentration )
What I have found though is little bits of information I've copied onto notebook and printed out. Where I found these little tipbits on the internet I've no idea, but certainly handy.
regards to all sf

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