One of the things I constantly struggle with, on computers, is where to put my data. I’m constantly arranging and rearranging files, moving them from the server to the laptop, from the palmtop to the server, etc. And scanning photos and putting them somewhere. Then there’s the stuff that’s stuck in some program, sometimes proprietary. Email, my Quicken files.
But under the assumption that I may want these files again someday, say in a few years – how do I be sure I can find and open them? A text file is still the default software storage method; maybe eventually xml will replace that for a lot of formatted data.
Another thing is, backups. I don’t need to back up the same data over and over again, and in fact the more often I do the less I really know where it went. Can I delete stuff that’s backed up? No, that’s what “archives” are for – but if I create an archive then forget to delete it?
Then there’s hardware. There’s whole big discussions about the longevity of CDs, floppies, hard drives, other media. I mainly keep and back up stuff on hard drives, and archive it on CDs, for the moment. I’ve got a DAT tape from some backup a long time ago that I don’t know why I bother to keep; and there are floppy backups all over my computer room I should just throw away. And someday the CDs will be obsolete, but I’ll need a mechanism to read them onto whatever the newest media is. Least common denominator, most cross-compatible is the way to go here; that’s why I haven’t bothered with DVDs because of the diversity of standards for data storage. At least I know if it’s on a CD or my hard drive, I can read it now.