Movage versus Storage

Recently Kevin Kelly, one of my favorite thinkers, wrote an article he called Movage.

The basic premise should scare you and make you take action.

Most of us back up our files and servers. Heck, I back mine up automatically daily and have them picked up by armoured truck and taken to a secure storage site with armed guards.

Kevin's point is that we have no real idea how long the back up media will last. I can not believe I did not start worrying about this long ago. I guess I have a false sense of security because my 20 year old VCR tapes of Magnum PI can still be played in my 10 year old VCR player. Of course now with 5000 channels and DVR I don't need them. But watching AT&T commercials pushing long distance calls for only $1.00 a minute is worth it.

Apparently DVD's you do yourself have a less than 4 year shelf life.

Also, who does have a machine that can still read the floppy disks from my Radio Shack TRS-80 Model III?

Kevin's conclusion - and the action you should take - don't just store your back ups. Back them up regularly to current devices and data formats. Move them from storage to storage to keep them fresh and retrievable.