What is Data Rot?

Can data just disappear if you leave your drives sitting around for too long?
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Thanks to Tom Mortensen and Jon Panozzo from LimeTech for helping us fact-check this episode.
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[@narobii9815]

Man, if only someone had sent this to Linus, maybe he wouldn't be struggling with updating his petabyte server right now.

[@matthewferraro8020]

the irony this is showing up in reccomended now

[@KptnKMan360]

Something weird is going on, why indeed is this in my recommended? (edit for the hard of hearing, the retarded, and the "akshully" crowd: it's a rhetorical question, we know why this dumb old video is showing up 🙄)

[@matthewferraro8020]

@@KptnKMan360 if you don't know it's because petabyte project had a data loss problem recently

[@KptnKMan360]

@@matthewferraro8020 Lol wanna tell us something else we already know?

[@Esablaka]

@@KptnKMan360 but that's exactly the reason this is showing up. People searched for bit rot or data rot after watching the video, so now this video is being recommended again.

[@RaydeusMX]

TFW you save all your important data on stone tablets, only to have people destroying your backups to use the stone to build their homes 10,000 years later. =/

[@TonyP9279]

Stone tablets will get destroyed by ISIS before any HDD or SDD fails.

[@bomberharris9322]

nah those stone tablets will probably erode

[@CoWinkKeyDinkInc]

+tjperez69 who says that Isis can't blow up the SSDs or harddrive?

[@dgurevich1]

That's why you need offsite backups...

[@Tailslol]

for mdisk and archive disk you need a compatible blueray burner. i made a portable one with a icybox but it is huge and weight a ton XD

[@Helltech]

*Goes and plugs in all my old storage drives*

[@hartsockthomson3334]

Who?Luke?

[@Helltech]

Hartsock Thomson No, me? Wat.

[@holownsu]

dw... he stoopid :D

[@NeedForSpeed.2004]

Helltech shit they’re probably dead

[@wzr3293]

*C:\ Not Found*

[@X91_G31]

If only Linus had watched this before he built the vault...

[@TheNuclearGeek]

I wanted to like your comment, but it already had 69 likes.

[@X91_G31]

@@TheNuclearGeek i understand thank you

[@Sol4rOnYt]

Linus is literally part of tech quickie

[@X91_G31]

@@Sol4rOnYt yeah and?

[@HikingFeral]

You copy and pasted a Comment. Nice

[@jacobytes8720]

gaming on stone tablets is now the newest trend

[@HShango]

lmao

[@danijelujcic8644]

you screw up tic-tac-toe or connect four, you can't deny and reverse the move because it's ... written in the stone

[@lambdasixtwo8808]

I know right?! minecraft runs like dream on stone tablets. Its like im actually mining

[@donotscantheqrcode8700]

+Allabaster Die Yang so you mine stone in your stone tablet made out of stone? *mindblown

[@calvesman.willem]

+Allabaster Die Yang yo dawg i heard you like stone so i put stone in your stone tablet so you can mine stone on your stone

[@TheHoaxHotel]

Actually had a recent pet ferret mishap, it was devastating.

[@JJRicks]

Nice seeing you here again

[@ofi1831]

I am ferret tech support give us 3000$ to stop the ferret irs

[@sunnyboynfs]

My dog ate my headphone cord.. Ughhhh

[@SilverLuna07]

I did have that happen with my ferret twice so far, but she stopped doing it.

[@Kletterhaus]

love your vids

[@MasterYoshidino]

Where can I buy DOOM on stone tablets?

[@ghoulbuster1]

ask cyber demon if he got a spare ancient stone copy or use demonic steam

[@Spacekriek]

Right next to the store that sells stone computers...

[@BasicEndjo]

do quartz disks they are better

[@datsnek]

One frame per month, stone work is difficult...

[@Triumph263]

Actually if you just included the free demo of the first game and compressed the hell out of it you could probably put Doom 1 into a stone tablet in only a few months.

[@Rubysh88]

I'm a bit disappointed, you forgot to mention tapes, modern tape storage is the best way to store a lot of data for a really long time, while the drive cost a shit ton, the tapes them self are really cheap, they offer a much better price/gb than even the cheapest HDDs, they are slow but the point is to use them as backups, you can literally save dozens to even hundreds of terabytes on a single tape cartridge and they should last decades longer than any other digital storage.

[@TheLuizSouza]

Yeah, a place I worked at used tapes for storage. They're incredibly reliable.

[@randomquestion7592]

At school they called them tapedrives.

[@dragonwarriorz1]

@@techno1561 Still worth a passing mention. Not many are going to buy m disc either

[@builder396]

Are tapes that slow though? I know access times must be hilarious, but I think i read somewhere that actual transfer speeds arent that bad, maybe you could even play a decent movie off of one?

[@user-sg1lq8qx7g]

@@builder396 they're not slow unless your copying very small files (less than like 20mb)

[@JonnyHatSwag]

"20 to 100 years" Laughs in Windows XP installation Disc

[@hikaru9624]

Still got mine too and it still works.

[@darkmoon556]

@@hikaru9624 nice

[@hikaru9624]

@@darkmoon556 Thank you :)

[@pnnytx]

my dad's windows 98 install cd: *pathetic*

[@craigedwardjensen6382]

My IBM boot floppy from 1984 I am the destroyer of worlds

[@zachjoseph7121]

I find it ironic this video pops up on my feed.. when this issue is happening currently with their stuff.. lol

[@fredrikl5152]

So if my m-Disc fails after 500 years will i get a refund?

[@bobsquirrelking]

Good like finding a working drive to prove they failed :P

[@fredrikl5152]

Keep an old rig stored somewhere, done.

[@Goretantath]

Bob, Squirrel King just get one built with the blueprints that will be free to use after such a period of time and a 3d printer since they probably will be able to print any material you want with a single printer... hopefully

[@mikejuan6134]

Good question. You'll need that refund money if that happens too since it's expensive to have yourself immortalized by putting your head into sealed glass jar.

[@biswajeetsingh4994]

Will you live for more than 100 years 😆

[@connorwagner614]

Gotta love youtube recommendation timing

[@toner3056]

My whole computer rotted after my apartment burned down..."Austin Evans"

[@oldpaleridge]

Burn

[@SkeleCrafteronYT]

Ha, get it? Cos his house burned down... no? Okay.

[@muskit_]

summit1g started the fire.

[@nishant7452]

Why is this guy even alive.

[@sillygoose728]

Galactic Cato

[@IshaanNyatiJi]

When it happened to LMG, this video is now reappearing in the wild all over again.

[@krim7]

Very funny that KZbin recomemded this video after data rot hit the LTT server

[@The89Lunder]

You discovered that too 😊

[@JurySpudweiserA7x]

Not even joking.... This video came out the day after my hard drive lost all its data... -.- is this a sign? :/

[@LazyOtaku]

Yeah, fuck your priorities.

[@jitterrypokery1526]

Sorry for your loss man, i know how it feels

[@haseenabadshah5381]

69 likes lmao

[@FarmYardGaming]

F

[@bloonsfamily2066]

mayby he's reading your mind

[@jackjadoenath7075]

Stone can break and degrade, ask the Romans.

[@Slenderman63323]

I believe the Romans experienced data rot (literally)

[@NeedForSpeed.2004]

Erosion & shit

[@user-zo9dc1lu3q]

Vero (true).

[@Iridium_yt]

Still their things are still there after 2000 years.

[@LuizAlexPhoenix]

@@Iridium_yt Very few, most aren't...

[@gedstrom]

I tend to go into over-kill mode on backups. For my photo library, which I consider the most critical, I keep 2 sets of Blu-Ray backup disks, with one set being stored 55 miles away in my motor-home as a disaster backup. I also keep a backup copy on a small 3TB shirt-pocket size drive. That is in addition to the primary copy stored on my hard disk. I also check my Blu-Ray backups every couple of years to make sure they can still be read. My oldest optical disk backups are 20 year old CD-s and are still going strong.

[@TheBest9zq]

this was just recommended to me, ah youtube thanks for the timing

[@edge21str]

Depending on how the future goes, information from our digital age might become lost over time, worse so than in previous periods.

[@SnifferSock]

That's actually pretty crazy to think about. Someone discovers generations of tech rendered useless due to bit rot.

[@8765Yumika]

Yes, there's a name for that: digital dark age. It's a real worry among historians. From the past we have stone tablets, letters, paintings and physical photographs. Digital photos, emails, comments on websites etc. could be wiped very easily, leaving nothing behind. The problem already exists in some capacity with outdated formats. Trying to get historical data from a floppy disc isn't as straight forward as going to a physical archive and rummaging through papers.

[@kaydwessie296]

We've been doing our Ancestry tree, and I was just thinking of how nice it is that stuff about me will be easier to find than stuff about my relatives... :(

[@VVayVVard]

Reminds me of "highly advanced ancient societies" being a common trope in fiction. Would be bizarre if we actually ended up becoming one.

[@LunaticTheCat]

Information is already getting lost at a rapid rate :/

[@raulgalets]

conveniently recommended after the vault's loss

[@RealDarkFilm]

As if cd drives will exist in even 100 years and they're guaranteeing up to 1000 years

[@Paul07791]

Based on what? What things from 100 years ago have vanished completely from the face of the earth?

[@bobbobson5595]

Lantern Jaw telegraphs

[@joemann7971]

Just because something is no longer popular, doesn't mean it just vanished from the face of the earth. You could still buy brand new floppy drives. Granted, they are USB rather than internal, but they are still in existence. I'm sure CD/DVD/Blu-ray will continue to exist in one way or another.

[@antenna_prolly]

It'll be Old Old Old Old Old School

[@harrylane4]

@@Paul07791 alfred Hitchcock's Mountain Eagle, for one

[@DUMBDUDEGAMER]

What is Data Rot? Something you did not foresee until it was too late. Remember to scrub your data folks.

[@michel8847]

i like how KZbin recommended this right after Linus’ server died due to data rot

[@jacqueshilo250]

Lmao this is in my recommended after LTT New Vault experiences data loss… savage

[@kendawg_mcawesome]

No mention of magnetic tapes?

[@mrballbreeder3749]

he mensioned the tapes

[@shadoudirges]

It is technically the same process as HDD. Both use magnetism to write & read data.

[@stephensnell5707]

​@@mrballbreeder3749you mean mentioned

[@mrballbreeder3749]

@@stephensnell5707 You mean 7 years to late

[@DeathRiderCS6]

KZbin really doing LTT dirty recommending this

[@Romi969]

i have 10x10m stone tablet that keeps my important documents. there are 0 and 1 on the tablet and it fits a whole 2kb

[@-.---.-.-.-]

My 10x10m stone tablet stores 125kb, problem is that the write speed is about 1 bit per second which means it takes 11.6 days of manual work to fill it with data.

[@thetrashman5381]

I can live with the size problem of the 10x10m tablets as I have 7 of them stacked up, but the write speed is unacceptable, even after I got it up to 1.2 bits per second.

[@svampebob007]

should have used HEX, it's 4 times more compact. you would have been able to save about 8Kb of data, probably enough for a nice nipple :)

[@Spacekriek]

Fortunately technology will save you once again ! I hear the Egyptians have invented something they call papyrus... :P

[@poopstick7809]

+Patton44 (Glo) wow... I got a larger model-20m by 30m, and I tried to over clock my rock 3 bits/s but it broke in half

[@ShiroKage009]

Bit rot mate, bit rot. Also, powering on an HDD won't save it from bit rot. It'll rot over time, even in a RAID setups. That's why ZFS has things like scrubbing and checksums that validate whether or not the data or the parity is what's corrupted, and it'll restore it from there.

[@TrailAddict.]

Yepp it is real, I can't see how that was only glossed over...

[@IAmTheRealKen]

ZFS is fantastic.

[@liesdamnlies3372]

The general lack of ZFS support on consumer grade stuff is fucking frustrating. :(

[@ShiroKage009]

***** The thing is, there are hardware solutions that do some of what ZFS does. However, they're in really expensive enterprise grade stuff. Not just any enterprise stuff, but really high-end enterprise stuff that you won't find everywhere. BTRFS better take off and get adopted by Microsoft or something. NTFS is freaking terrible.

[@IAmTheRealKen]

ShiroiKage009 Well, Microsoft has their own sort of new file system called ReFS. It's not great and kinda slow currently, BTRFS and especially ZFS are better, but it's a start at least.

[@itslegiTim]

Imagine doing a Video on Bit Rot and 5 Years later having this exakt problem on your 1 Petabyte Server and being like "Who could have known?"

[@aame6643]

The algorithm has a sense of humor

[@A.Achorn]

Wow topical much KZbin? What a time to suggest this really old techquickie... right after like 3 main channel videos about a little woopsie!

[@AmaxterPlays]

2:12 those sound effects though

[@JohnDoe-uq2qd]

I was just listening to this in the background and it scared the hell out of me lol

[@rich1051414]

Sounds like they were ripped from the system sounds library from Windows 98 Plus! :P

[@balthazarnaylor5874]

Sounds like my old presentations

[@Gabwiell]

creepy

[@FrenchfryGamer]

I scrolled down to the comment section and saw your comment. At the same time, that sound effect played.

[@satin227]

I think the fact that the industry is still using magnetic tape drives supporting capacities in the terabytes is a pretty good way of storing data for quite some time

[@mattrs1]

I come from the future.. This is a foreshadowing for what will happen to LMG in 2022

[@kylehazachode]

Ironic how my collection of floppies outlived my collection of CDs. There is a species of fungus that eats the metallic layer in certain CD-R and CD-RW discs.

[@DigitalM00nlight]

Funny thing is that there's a different fungus that eats the disc in floppies, probably why they moved to hard plastic casing when they went to 3.5"

[@liesdamnlies3372]

+Papa Moon No, the move to hard plastic casing was to enhance durability. That casing isn't going to stop fungus spores...why the heck would it?

[@DigitalM00nlight]

***** Because the plastic wouldn't absorb moisture like the old paper casing on 5 1/4" did and the actual disk isn't constantly exposed like 5 1/4" floppies were

[@liesdamnlies3372]

Papa Moon That's pretty flimsy reasoning. The magnetic media on 3.5" floppies -was sandwiched between two layers of paper- had a paper ring between it and the casing. [1] "One of the chief usability problems of the floppy disk is its vulnerability. Even inside a closed plastic housing, the disk medium is still highly sensitive to dust, condensation and temperature extremes." [2] 1) www2.bgsu.edu/departments/english/cconline/sammons/floppy.pdf 2) www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/f/Floppy_disk.htm

[@bennett3569]

TIL fungus eats CDs

[@roykale9141]

Well, this aged well

[@arulkws]

i have books from my great great grandpa, and the data hasn't rot yet Books : 1 SSD : 0

[@RantiMess]

But can they run Fallout 4?

[@twixieshores]

Rantis Only in 720p at 40fps

[@calvinkulit]

Arul book data can rot

[@miljenko4209]

boomer 100

[@bobbymoore5081]

Only the smart book can Run fall out 4

[@jonathanshipley196]

Love that this is in my recommended

[@drift180x]

I’m very surprised to hear about the SSD one. My original PSP memory stick from back in the day still has all its data in tact, and it’s over a decade old. Same with my PS1 and PS2 memory cards. I haven’t noticed any problems with my backup external SSD either, granted there’s too much data on it to test individually.

[@blufudgecrispyrice8528]

They use flash storage... which is similar to ssd but pretty different.

[@snakeeyesraw]

@@blufudgecrispyrice8528 SSD is flash storage.

[@nicholasneyhart396]

My GameCube memory stick is going on 20 and is still fine.

[@stephensnell5707]

​​@@nicholasneyhart396well you should get rid of it and replace it before it corrupts itself

[@nicholasneyhart396]

@@stephensnell5707 I have a backup or two.

[@U.S.A.]

I figured out that a pendrive can store data longer if it's in use, while I lost data after 3 years on those what I didn't use, finally someone explained why.

[@KnownNever]

You know what also causes data rotting, Nuclear weapons #TheMoreYouKnow

[@joshuatolkamp4079]

KZbin recommended this video shortly after I saw their latest server content where they lost a bunch of data to data rot. Either that's a huge coincidence or KZbin's algorithm is damn good

[@FusionFiber]

Or alot of people started searching for data rot since it wasn't explained in the video :D

[@michamarzec9786]

Linus gotta see this video explode rn. That's actually hilerious how yt algorithm works.

[@matt_lore]

Techquickie as fast as possible

[@haseenabadshah5381]

TechQUICKIE

[@jadetraveler]

I've been hearing about optical disc rot, but I have yet to see any of my old optical discs fail. I don't use my discs nearly as much as I used to, but they've always been readable when I do. I have a backup I burned onto a CD-R in 2000 that is still readable, and just a few weeks ago I played a DVD movie that I bought in 2001, and it played without any problems. Some of my music CDs are even older (I still have a couple of my first music CDs that I got in 1992).

[@Eyedunno]

I lost a few. The one I remember best is a copy of Bad Religion's "Stranger Than Fiction" with huge chunks of the metallic layer destroyed over time. Also, DVD-Rs from the aughties don't last as long as CD-Rs due to the smaller size of the burned pits being much more vulnerable to the degradation of the dye layer. I managed to back up most of mine to M-Disc in 2017 before they became completely unreadable, but they were taking a very, very long time to read, and they had been stored in a wooden storage ottoman for probably ten years of that time, so they were not exposed to light or heat.

[@sofaking6642]

linus should have seen this

[@nikobellic840]

The irony of this getting recommended just now as the server goes bad.

[@penitent2401]

I carve the most important data onto the back of a Nokia 3310, no force in the universe can destroy it.

[@MarlonBitoy]

What do you use to carve it?

[@penitent2401]

another nokia 3310

[@MarlonBitoy]

***** Ahhh, ok.

[@cessposter]

Will it blend?

[@kornkernel2232]

@@penitent2401 But in return that causes black hole

[@ParadoxdesignsOrg]

Bring on the 3.5" SSD's. Make those transistors gigantic!

[@stephensnell5707]

You twat,they can't be made too big,they have to be kept small so the SSD Drives can gain capacity

[@stephensnell5707]

If that ever occured it the Capacity would be too tiny

[@komi_maru]

I'm here after Linus lost their archival backup 😂

[@superNova5837]

same

[@palarious]

Can't wait until we have actual crystal storage etched by lasers with a million year lifespan and super dense capacity. The tech is already there, just not commercially.

[@DBT1007]

Yes, the most advanced human technology is so advance than the commercial version of it, but, it's also NOT THAT ADVANCE YET, BRUH. We still can't write data on crystals. Now crystals only just for the decoration purpose.

[@palarious]

@@DBT1007 no, they can write to the crystal. You can look it up pretty easily. New Atlas would bea good source.

[@Goabnb94]

The problem is, though, you have a trade off between an HDD and an SSD. An HDD comes in two states 1) failed, or 2) not yet failed. Some might last 10-15 years, and I had one year where I changed my Western Digital HDD 4 times in the year (thankfully on warranty). So you are basically gambling. An SSD you can be sure will last for a certain number of read write cycles (in the millions which means it will last a long time), and are generally more durable than HDDs. So its like, do you pick the option that is guaranteed to last a certain period of time, or the option that may last longer or fail next year? Of course, this all assumes you are constantly using the drive. Its a good idea to always back up data to several places.

[@hedgeearthridge6807]

I always thought of it like an HDD is a slot machine, it's pretty much random when it will fail. Could be on first use, could be in 10 years. An SSD is like a countdown timer. It will start to die after a pretty predictable amount of time, and it will continue to die until it's completely dead. And good luck recovering data from an SSD, if it does randomly break.

[@lonniebeal6032]

Odd, I've had one hdd fail, I've had to donate or recycle hdds over 20 years old because they are too small for the times, IE:, 20gb, 30gb, I am currently using and old IDE 60gb for mp3 backup, which I am about to burn to the black cd, which is vinyl.

[@samtherat6]

KZbin is savage for recommending this now.

[@jamesmcintosh4664]

I think Linus should take his own advice on this one

[@WarriorsPhoto]

Well done Luke. This was some great information about keeping data for a long time. Nothing like having media in several locations if it really does need to be kept forever.

[@TheInternetHelpdeskPlays]

Given what's just happened to new new vault, its apt this popped up on my timeline.

[@createnateMMA]

Is the DNA storage system susceptible to this?

[@EeinFredrickson]

no

[@EeinFredrickson]

+SEEKmedia nothing is safe

[@ZombieBarioth]

As long as you're alive, no.

[@zyx218]

Yes, it's called cancer.

[@TomatoBreadOrgasm]

Eukaryotic cells have at least 5 layers of error protection for DNA replication, some of which work for DNA damage due to environmental mutagens. As with error-correcting data storage, there's only so much you can do against the second law of thermodynamics, and fighting that takes an external energy source. The solution our DNA has found to inevitable accumulation of mutations is 1) redundant DNA without any biological function, which increases the odds that a mutation will have no effect on the organism's biochemistry, 2) taking advantage of a necessary three-base-pair codon system to make about one third of mutations within genes silent (i.e. with no effect on the resulting protein, therefore no effect on the organism's biochemistry), and 3) rolling with it, because sometimes mutations are beneficial. TL;DR in a sense, yes.

[@taakotuesday7878]

Funny how this video gets recommended today, right as LTT is dealing with Data Rot on the petabyte project servers

[@kuttispielt7801]

Interesting that this is recommended now

[@skywarr5508]

Fitting this would be recommended to me now...

[@jameslangridge8849]

I miss when luke did more than just wan show. I know floatplane is super important, but he's just so happy and fun. Good nostalgia hit 👍

[@Chibibowa]

What's even Floatplane btw, I always wondered.

[@MTGeomancer]

@@Chibibowa It's like KZbin, but owned by LTT, and has a paywall to access the content.

[@arjunkharbanda]

Dual boot as fast as possible.

[@BilisNegra]

Guess you mean use redundant storage (RAID).

[@SFSAtlas]

Basically, there are 2 seperate partitions on the drive. One for 1 OS, and one for the other. The bootloader, generally located on an EFI partition, will notice there are 2 OSes and ask you what one you would want to use

[@schultzy450]

Oh shit if only ltt had seen this video

[@the-classic-gamer]

you forgot to talk about tape drives

[@AmberAmber]

The Classic Gamer Yesss!!!! Dracula's Castle. Vic 20. Rainy Saturday. Nerdy & friendless me... #80s #Nostalgia 👍🏽💗☮️💜

[@Focusedone-yr9ci]

I took your advice and started using stone tablets and 1000 years down the line they have not worn away and are extremely study I completely recommend this. Thank you Tech quickie / LTT

[@RRW359]

I hear magnetic tape is actually pretty decent as a backup. It's not good at being a main storage method for a number of reasons, though. Also, I know they aren't really an option, but what about ROM chips like carriages for older consoles? I know you can't really use them as they're write-once and I have no idea where/if you'd be able to get/write to them, but I don't know if they even have a storage time limit.

[@ORCACommander]

No mention of experimental crystal or dna storage :(

[@hedgeearthridge6807]

Because it's experimental and nobody uses it. Seems pretty obvious

[@TheJademan85]

The "yearlong timeout of an SSD" should be tried! Install the OS and the benchmarks on it and then plug it out! :D

[@shockrocker976]

Ooof, suggested right after you had this problem

[@mixsaiyan2937]

I love it, you're getting better and better, subbed :)

[@Andreadel96]

Lol, KZbin recommending this 5 year old video now, after they lost a lot of data to data rot. The irony. 😂

[@Evelaraevia]

RIP Petabyte Project.

[@johnabbott5950]

One of the best quickies, in my opinion. Really appreciate it :)

[@EpicMind500]

"Dont leave your drives laying around" When they literally had an archival system in a bathroom where they took HDD's out of a server and put them on the sink counter.

[@TomatoBreadOrgasm]

2:45 holy shit that's my old laptop. Dell, 15" display, massive battery, screen with a viewing angle of 90°±0.00001°. That thing is ancient.

[@MySplash911]

How can I save all the porn i've downloaded through the years on a stone tablet please ?

[@queefy1731]

MySplash911 Bluetooth my friend

[@IgorMilano]

Carve every frame of the video on different tablets. If you want to watch just put them in a straight line and run fast...

[@queefy1731]

Igor Milano hahaha

[@MySplash911]

Igor Milano instructions not clear, got my dick stuck under a rock

[@TorutheRedFox]

convert every video to Base64 and write every symbol on the tablet

[@somecuntxxx]

This video is 5 years old but I am getting a m disc drive now it is exactly what I've been looking for my entire life

[@HiteshChavda]

That's why I like this channel, learned one small thing never leave your hdd unplugged for a year or two.

[@bhoot1702]

Best way is to backup in every different device you have. I don't trust cloud storage for storing photos.

[@tjnickles4782]

dvd can last longer I have dvds that are 15 to 20 years old and vhs tapes that are 20 30 and I one vhs tape that almost 40s old and still works even to this very day but the thing is if you take care of your stuff it could last for a very long time just take care of your stuff and it should last like my vhs tapes and DVDs

[@TheTyisawesome]

Tj Nickles same my parents have vhs tapes that are over 50 years old and the still work. they purchased a VCR and some videos when they were first released, they even still have the receipt and it's dated 1963.

[@ronnieradon]

@@TheTyisawesome VHS from 1963..? What?

[@OscarPattersonOJP]

3:43 W O A H

[@kodykj2112]

The production quality has massively improved over these five years. Not that this is bad by any means but I think you get what I mean.

[@unlazinessboyo]

I need an immortal hdd

[@brunovazquez1]

but are you immortal?

[@rachmatzulfiqar]

Bruno Vazquez are we all?

[@_sunnyskies1742]

Rachmat Zulfiqar Probably... NOT.

[@Horny_Fruit_Flies]

My 500Gb HDD from 2006 is still working fine. I can sell it to you for 30,000 $

[@antenna_prolly]

That sounds like the title of a future clickbait Linus vid "We Tried The 'IMMORTAL HDD!!'"

[@MrCallmeawsome]

This was recommended to me…. If only someone at LTT had watched this recently xP

[@bryno92]

Very informative. Thank you

[@hokusman100]

One of my favorite musicians put my favorite release of theirs out on an independently released CD-R. I haven’t played the actual disc in years because I’ve been using my iPhone to play the ripped files, but since I started using PlexAmp I’ve been re-ripping my discs as FLAC. But this one disc has totally degraded and is unrippable now. Luckily the artist put the specific release out on Bandcamp so the music isn’t lost

[@AnnonymousCommentor28]

KZbin really trolling Linus by recommending this to everyone huh?

[@Kampftroll]

Huh... yeah, I'm glad LMG is aware of data rot, imagine if a big storage server would not be configured right, they could loose data and build another server tp try to resolve it. Imagine that.

[@OoICEHAWKoO]

huge fan love all the vids. I know some people want to see cloning a hard drive and replacing it

[@puntakbdr3]

very good explained and helpful to me thank you !

[@timmersoft]

Hey Linus, maybe you should have checked this video out again.

[@ParadoxdesignsOrg]

I've actually found moldy CD's in my car before. Pretty sure they still work. Gotta have my Spice Girls CDRs!

[@DynamixWarePro]

I have had an external 3.5" 100GB HDD that has worked for about 14 years so far and only recently did I have an issue with it when I plugged in the HDD and some files were gone from the drive, but I think some sort of error happened that caused that as no one but me had access to it and I didn't delete anything, but luckily I had multiple backups.

[@benjaminpountney5457]

1:01 Ferret: That SATA cable was delicious LTT guy: OK, lets continue!

[@akmens]

gonna save porn on MDisc and burry it somewhere .

[@Flyingwithdale]

500 years later a kid digs it up. Mommy I found flintstone porn!

[@DMack6464]

cool idea

[@CoolJoe330]

Last time I was this early cringe wasn't an overused word.

[@gluee8674]

so cringy

[@spiddyman0079]

Last time I was this early mentioning being early in the comments wasnt a trend.

[@MaxWilliams]

haha

[@JohnDoe-uq2qd]

That must have been a loooooong time ago

[@Silvain1]

Savage? Anyone?

[@unfa00]

Oh shit, I have drives that are 10 years old I I never plugged them in! Gotta power them up to prevent data rot!

[@richardsandwell2285]

This is fantastic information for us who are less well informed about computer technology.

[@thabg007]

i was able to recover some data from a 400MB hard drive from 20 years ago

[@coolmoviewatcher]

Under the right conditions you should be mostly fine (or maybe you're super lucky). Also, I'd be willing to bet that the quality of the drive and the way in which it's stored will have a huge impact on how long the data stays good. It might even be possible that those older, smaller capacity drives were less susceptible to this form of decay... But that's just me saying things, no idea if that's true or not.

[@thabg007]

well i had to use an adapter to convert hard drive connector to usb, then a data recovery program to read the hard drive as raw data, found a bunch of old word documents and other files

[@Danimineiro]

+thabg007 Is it an good idea to store one in a freezer?

[@Zestypanda]

......good job?

[@joshman5379]

water it safe does not hurt gpu/cpu/motherbord/... it powers with water that breaks it. It short-circuits the gpu/cpu/motherbord/...