[majinuub]

I'm in love with this concept! I'm wondering about the longevity of storage devices.

> SD Cards won’t last 100 years but the code to talk to one will.

It seems like the article implies that family that owns an heirloom computer would have to backup their data every decade or so, assuming the storage medium lasts that long.

Are there any data storage options that can go decades without being used? From my admittedly cursory research, it seems like M-Disc or solid state storage are the best options so far.

[jagged-chisel]

Is that really "SD cards won't last 100 years" or "...won't last for 100 years of read/write operation"?

That's solid state storage. If it won't last 100 years just sitting around, what possibly could? I think we just have to assume some amount of archivist activity is inevitable if we want data to last decades or even centuries: someone must copy the data periodically; and the data needs error correction built in.

[dwheeler]

SD cards are useless for long term storage, they last maybe 5 years: http://www.datarecoveryspecialists.co.uk/blog/what-is-the-li...

They depend on holding electrons within cells, and over time the electrons leak out.

[ghaff]

I know this is being completely facetious but paper. (Preferably acid-free.) And punch cards.

I doubt any current electronic mass storage medium which has that kind of longevity even under controlled conditions.

I also doubt that storage on traditional physical media is really practical for most things based on both storage density and error rates translating from physical to digital.