Hey all!
As much as I appreciate gog for the service it provides, I'm an inherently paranoid guy, so I like backing up my games.

What I'm wondering about, there some long term storage solution I could use?
Something akin to saving it, and then putting it in a box at the back of my cupboard (generally safe from dust and moisture and high temperatures), and then forgetting about it for 30 years.

I used to do it on floppy disks, and surprisingly, floppy disks I saved in the early 90s are readable while those from less than 15 years ago are corrupted. I guess with the advent of CD-R and flashdrives, companies gave up on quality control for floppy disks?

Later I saved them on CD-Rs, but even those don't seem to survive very well. 10-15 year old CD-Rs really make my drive huff and puff, and work INCREDIBLY slow, and sometimes several folders or files are inaccessible.

I've got a couple of DVDRs of saved data now, but I get the feeling, since they're the same size as CDs except WAY more packed, they'll be even worse in a couple years, and Blu-Ray even worse.

Online storage might've been a solution, except I definitely don't trust that anymore (all my poor megaupload files...).

Currently what I'm doing is saving it on my USB flash drives or external HD, and checking or recopying every year or so. I'm hoping there's a more permanent solution, but searching around, it doesn't seem so. Heck, it's a pity I can't compress my stuff into a reasonable number of 3MB chunks, or I'd just use this: http://ollydbg.de/Paperbak/ :D

Unfortunately, the best solution I can think of for you is redundant storage, but you'd still have to checkup on it and update the hardware shortly before the time the storage device you use fails on average.

I'm afraid they don't make things to last anymore which I think will be part of our downfall.

I vaguely recall reading somewhere that good quality external hard drives have a life expectancy of about 3 years, but I'd suggest you Google it yourself.

Judging by the noise on my music cassettes (is that the same technology?), I'd have thought that'd be the worst solution of all?

"There are many benefits of using magnetic tape over other storage mediums. One of its advantages is longevity. Unlike other forms of storage, tapes last a lot longer and are less susceptible to the risks modern drives face. In fact, tapes can still be read reliably after thirty years, whereas the average disk lasts a mere five years." - http://www.globalbankingandfinance.com/safeguarding-data-on-magnetic-tape/

I'd think that flash drives would be a viable option, so long as you use them for storage only and don't try to run any games (or keep trying to update save files) on them.

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.

The oldest CD I've had was that of Dungeon Keeper when it came out in 1997. I then tried to install the game in 2006, and it still worked! I've lost it somewhere since; I wonder if it'd still work today.

Actually, this is a case where "cloud storage" concepts could be extremely useful. In theory. The fact that there are many users who are trying to store identical files (i.e., GOG installers) would open up options that make the storage both secure and cheap.

What we'd need, is a service with the following parameters:

- Runs on a server with solid, reliable hardware
- Files only need to be stored on the server once, even if thousands of users want to save it
- Access to the files is unlocked through keys determined by a small application
- If you want to "store" one of your installers, you just run the application, which checks if you indeed have the file on your local drive, and then unlocks it for you on the server. There isn't even a need for an upload unless you are the first user to store that particular file.
- To "retrieve" a file, you log into the server with your account, and then have access to all files that you have unlocked.
- Costs are shared between users according to individual use of bandwidth and storage space, plus some percentage for server maintenance and compensation for the person who maintains it. This encourages users to use the server only as a backup, makes storage of popular files very cheap (since the storage costs for a popular file are divided between lots of users), and discourages users from putting up non-game files (they would cause higher bandwidth and storage costs since there wouldn't be other users to share these file's costs with)
- There wouldn't be any copyright infringement since you only can access files that you own
- If GOG goes down, the files can be accessed from the server. If the server goes down, the files can still be accessed through GOG.

Basically, it's a service that makes use of known technologies and algorithms, while keeping the cost partcularly low, since bandwidth and storage space can be kept low due to the particular situation of lots of people wanting to backup exactly the same files.

Unfortunately, such a service does not exist. Sometimes I wonder why.

I don't know anything about the current magnetic tapes for data, but.. they seem so anachronistic to me in 2014!
Are they really the only long-term choice?

I got rid of any cassette, floppy, optical media ages ago. I use twin external WD drives for backups (3gb is currently 130$ each), but I don't know if they could last 30 years without mechanical problems.. probably SSDs would be ideal, when they'll become cheap in the future.

P.S: my 10 years old burned (at 4x) DVDs worked perfectly when I needed them. The only issue was the dvd drive!

I have an external 3TB drive I put stuff on like installers, ect. Every so often I'll back that up onto a separate drive that I keep in a fire safety box I keep in the closet. I used to burn DVDs, but that got tiresome years ago and I have just gone the route of getting bigger hard drives over time and re purposing older ones for backups.

I don't really trust online backup solutions as when things go wrong theres always the chance you won't have internet access, or fast enough access to recover everything.

Holographic crystals perhaps?

high quality dvd
record the data. put in a jewel case. laminate the case. store in dark dry place.

use latex glove while handling the dvd.

i think this is the most effective method for regular guy/gal.

Way different type of medium. Also, noise does not affect the magnetic properties of the recording. I have tapes that have data on them from years ago. I also own cassette tapes that still have all of the information on them from when I bought them or created them in the 1970's. Would a CDR/DVDR still have that information on them? I don't know. I guess it depends on the brand of the CDR/DVDR. Like anything if you buy crap you get crap back.

Neither cloud storage nor dvd's are forever....

Nothing is forever.

Well, I suppose you could chisel binary code into stoneblocks, which might survive for several millennia, but I doubt it's a very practical form of storage. ;)

What we can do, is to make sure that we have our data stored at two completely independent places, and whenever one of those fails, copy the data from the other and open up a new independent storage space.