Tell HN: Human Continuity of Data Project

[keepamovin]

I just found out that the longest lasting mass storage media humans have (erm, besides our genes) is essentially USB sticks and tape backups.

I was under the impression that a CD/DVD or even a hard drive could last for 100s of years. Nope!

If we were to lose all storage media manufacturing capacity tomorrow, in essence this means that all the world's data will be gone in a single generation.

To me this seems like an unacceptable risk.

It's like working 3 weeks on an intense sprint and then losing all your work to bungling a force push with no backups. You may have experienced something similar! It's awful. The sense of defeat, and the mountain of work to rebuild, that you've already done, and entrusted to....a faulty process, or in the current case, a storage media that doesn't work ... for long term.

How can we deal with this? Don't we need to seriously be considering how we can preserve (not just archive some shit online from websites) but fundamentally deal with this physical problem?

We need rock solid backup technology that we can write to that will last for millennia!

[goatking]

I remember I read about this before, random article: https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/data-storage-techniq...

  A whole new kind of digital data storage could protect the legacy of the documents humanity considers most precious. The tiny glass disk can store up to 360 terabytes of information, and will be able to survive for billions of years without damage or data loss

No idea if the technology is viable, or how much it costs. But you can do some research based on the link.

I don't think you are the first one thinking about this :)

[keepamovin → goatking]

Thank you goatking! :)

I HOPE I'M NOT THE FIRST!

[keepamovin]

BTW - I'm creating a website for this: https://hcdp.space

If anyone wants to get involved to sit on the advisory board reach out to us at: hcdp@dosyago.com

The aim is to create eventually a 501(c)(3) that can help steer industry collaboration and raise awareness of this being an existential threat to our persistent legacy.