[Pasig-discuss] Write-blocking a RAID

[Barry Lunt]

     I also find it amazing that the format obsolescence issue looms so 
large. History has a very good lesson to teach us here - use a format 
which is widely adopted, and even after it is obsolete, people will know 
how to read it. History's example: Latin. Obsolete language for more 
than 1,000 years, yet still taught because it was very widely adopted, 
and there are hundreds of thousands of documents still extant, written 
in Latin. We study Latin because those documents exist.
     Use a widely-adopted format; people will know how to read it in the 
future, IF the bits still exist.

Barry Lunt
(my research area is permanent digital data storage)

On 11/5/2012 11:15 AM, David Rosenthal wrote:
> On 11/05/2012 10:05 AM, Mark Fitzsimmons wrote:
>> Hi Cory,
>>
>> Great point. You are absolutely right, file formats will become obsolescent.
>>
>> This will happen over time to particular formats that you have copies of.
>>
>> You will inevitably need to convert/preserve the content of those files to
>> an accessible media type.
>>
>> An inventory of the files you have and by type will provide the reference
>> point you need to track the impending migration of them ahead of
>> obsolescence.
> Whether or not at some point in the future there is a risk of format
> obsolescence, the files need to be extracted and put some place
> reasonably safe, as soon as possible. At this stage, worrying about
> formats is a waste of time and effort. Worry about formats after
> you have all the bits safe.
>
> It is truly amazing how each and every discussion of digital
> preservation gets hijacked by the "OMG format obsolescence" meme.
>
> See http://blog.dshr.org/2012/10/formats-through-time.html
>
> 	David.
>
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