The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #173236   Message #4201227
Posted By: MaJoC the Filk
19-Apr-24 - 06:17 AM
Thread Name: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
> Two hundred hard drives now sit on a chip the size
> of my little fingers nail.

If you mean flash drives (USB or fixed), please note that these suffer from long-term bit rot. Basically each bit is stored as charge on a suspended gate, and this charge will leak away over a period of years. You'll need to plug the drive into something every few months to permit its internal software to power up and refresh the contents. (Magnetic media suffer similarly, for different reasons. Floppy discs, for example, aren't trustable for more than about five to ten years.)

And that, mesdames et messieurs, is (a small part of) why I as a hard-core techie have the greatest respect for hard copy for long-term data storage. End of core dump.