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General discussion (archive)Long term storage for games?(20 posts)(20 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted May 18, 2014
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Psyringe: snip...

Unfortunately, such a service does not exist. Sometimes I wonder why.
Well, because that's what the GOG server kind of is already? :)

I hope and assume given the community here, that if GOG goes belly up we will arrange for something along those lines through P2P or somesuch. Available tech will probably become better anyway. If the forums go first, maybe we can all agree to meet and set it up in the official Steam group. How's that for ironic?

As for now that risk seems quite low, hence the lack of demand to make it a marginal cost.
Posted May 18, 2014
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Psyringe: snip...

Unfortunately, such a service does not exist. Sometimes I wonder why.
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Brasas: Well, because that's what the GOG server kind of is already? :)
The GOG server is unlikely, though, to ever hold installers from Groupees (lost all downloads a while ago), Indievania (closed shop some months ago, no one can access the games they purchased), or other services.

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Brasas: I hope and assume given the community here, that if GOG goes belly up we will arrange for something along those lines through P2P or somesuch.
Most probably, yes. GOG is blessed with a very active and helpful community.
Posted May 18, 2014
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Psyringe: Well, I suppose you could chisel binary code into stoneblocks, which might survive for several millennia,
Erosion and abrasion would be your enemies, unless the stone was stored in vacuum. And yeah, you'd need a mountain's worth of stone for even pre-1990 games. :D
Posted May 18, 2014
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Charon121: Well, in 30 years you'll be hard-pressed to find "antique" hardware which will read whatever media you opt for today. ;) I think your best bet is to keep moving your installation files to progressively better and larger storage devices: first copy them to DVDs, then copy all your DVD data to an SSD once they become more accessible, then copy again to whatever medium will become mainstream in the future, all the while adding new games to your collection. The size of data and time of transfer will become trivial so they won't be tedious. I wouldn't rely on the contemporary media for more than 10 years.
Agreed. Even museums, that obviously want to store data for quite a while, and that traditionally have tried to find storage mediums with great longevity (ones that promised several decades), are often nowadays instead using cheaper hard drive based solutions, and transferring the data to newer drives and solutions every few years, because even if you find a solution that will keep the data safe for a few decades, it isn't likely that you have hardware to read todays media at that point in the future.
Post edited May 18, 2014 by Maighstir
Posted May 18, 2014
I think I read somewhere that you want to avoid common flash memory for long term offline storage. I think it had something to do with the possibility of bits flipping if not powered on every 6 months or so.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)Long term storage for games?(20 posts)(20 posts)
(20 posts)