Intriguing news item but colour me cynical, I have to wonder how “perpetual” storage will pan out in the real world. Is this perchance a marketing spin?
However, it is interesting to reflect on this from a personal end-user’s long term perspective, especially in comparison to storage of non-electronic data, e.g. in books, on stone, etc. The personal user is increasingly bound to the tyranny of technology advance and challenged to establish a lifelong – in human terms – storage medium for electronic / digital data. As I see it, users can:
* store on own medium & avoid upgrades, hoping the medium and/or access device will remain usable over coming decades
* store on own medium but refresh this and/or the access device over the decades
* store on vendor / cloudy service, hoping such service will not go titsup before an opportunity to retrieve & transfer all data to another medium / service.
Assessing any of these options – or others you care to mention - involves the usual array of factors - risk, cost, effort, etc. But do personal end-users really do that sort of thing?
I get a sinking feeling that the world is moving to the third paradigm. If virtualised & software defined storage continue unabated, ordinary users may yet truly become vassals to the emerging digital monarchs.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
