"Of the thousands and thousands of archived hard disk drives from the 1990s that clients ask the company to work on, around one-fifth are unreadable."
Why is this surprising?
It's been known for decades that magnetic media loses remanence at several percent a year. It's why old sound tape recordings sound noisy or why one's family videotapes of say a wedding are either very noisy or unreadable 20 or so years later.
Given that and the fact that hard disks are already on the margin of noise when working properly it's hardly surprising.
The designers of hard disks go to inordinate lengths to design efficient data separators. These circuits just manage to separate the hardly-recognizable data signal from the noise when the drive is new and working well so the margin for deterioration is very small.
The solution is simple, as the data is digital it should be regenerated every few years.
Frankly I'm amazed that such a lax situation can exist in a professional storage facility.
Edit: has this situation developed because the digital world doesn't know or has forgotten that storing data on magnetic media is an analog process and such signals are deteriorated by analog mechanisms?
I'm amazed too. The mere fact that they accept storing hard disks powered off for years is a big red flag. It's in everyone's list of top things to avoid doing, not just in archiving circles:
Why is this surprising?
It's been known for decades that magnetic media loses remanence at several percent a year. It's why old sound tape recordings sound noisy or why one's family videotapes of say a wedding are either very noisy or unreadable 20 or so years later.
Given that and the fact that hard disks are already on the margin of noise when working properly it's hardly surprising.
The designers of hard disks go to inordinate lengths to design efficient data separators. These circuits just manage to separate the hardly-recognizable data signal from the noise when the drive is new and working well so the margin for deterioration is very small.
The solution is simple, as the data is digital it should be regenerated every few years.
Frankly I'm amazed that such a lax situation can exist in a professional storage facility.
Edit: has this situation developed because the digital world doesn't know or has forgotten that storing data on magnetic media is an analog process and such signals are deteriorated by analog mechanisms?