File Not FoundThe old files that I still can use—and in fairness, there are a lot of them—are the ones I’ve taken the trouble to copy from an old computer to a newer one each time I’ve bought a new system. But even those files suffer from a different form of playback drift, which is the constant change in file formats. I have word- processing files that were originally created in WordStar, XyWrite, Electric Pencil, DeScribe, and other now-extinct programs. Some can be transferred into the current standard, Word, but not all—and the problem is worse for many database, note-taking, and e-mail programs. As if that were not enough, there is another silent killer: “bit rot.” Pictures fade over time, and so, in a sense, does digital information. Both hard and floppy disks store data with tiny magnetic charges. Inevitably, the charges weaken, corrupting and finally eliminating the data. CD-ROMs and DVDs store data by etching pits in a layer of dye, which can also fade. It is as if all of our books and newspapers had been printed with disappearing ink. How long does each kind of degradation take? Some people told me five years on average, some people said fifteen—but in any case, less time than you’d hope to keep those digital pictures of your wedding. Recently I came across a box full of snapshots of my mother as a child, in the 1930s. They survived without being tended; today’s counterparts will not. All of these problems affect institutions on a grand scale. The Library of Congress, as part of its new National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Project, is investing $100 million to lead a consortium of universities and high-tech companies whose aim is to design new backup systems, convert old data in danger of being orphaned, and generally cope with the flood of high-volume, low-durability digital data. (Details about the full, ambitious program can be found at www.digitalpreservation.gov.) When I asked James Billington whether there was a precedent for the potential large-scale loss of data the consortium is trying to head off, he said, “Of course! The library at Alexandria.” This had been the central repository of the Mediterranean world’s knowledge, including the works of the Greek philosophers and playwrights, until it disappeared, probably in a fire, in the third century. “There was no backup!” Billington said. “And people took it for granted, until it was gone. I’ll be frank, that is a major haunting thing for me about our library.” He had broader threats to libraries in mind—mainly budgetary, if citizens begin to consider libraries outdated and lose interest in funding them. But the point applied to digital preservation. How can we be less haunted about our own computers? During a meeting with six members of the library’s preservation team, I asked what individuals should do. “Make copies!” they said in unison. One of the library’s Internet experts said that if a document was important enough, she would always print it out, as backup for the digital file. (I wish I’d printed out those old interview notes.) Another kept a disk-copying device next to her desktop—and stored the disks in a different building. For both laptop users and mighty institutions, then, preserving digital files is an active rather than passive process. You must transfer files from old tapes or disks to new ones, as storage standards change; you must import information from one program to another whenever you change software; you must rerecord backup files at least every few years, so the information doesn’t just crumble away. Among hardware backup devices, an external hard drive, like the popular Maxtor OneTouch, is the simplest to use, because it can be set to automatically mirror the contents of your computer’s hard drive. But an external drive is relatively expensive, at $300 and up, and if your main computer is affected by fire or flood, so is the nearby backup. Systems that copy your hard disk onto DVDs, tape cassettes, or media that you can take to a different location are cheaper, but they require more fussing with, and to avoid “playback drift” you have to replace them when storage standards change. Many backup possibilities involve no hardware. With a free utility available at tinyurl.com/4yg48, I’ve turned a Gmail account into a free online storage system, and it can hold more than two gigabytes’ worth of files. For-pay systems like Xdrive, iBackup, and others let you store larger amounts of data online for $100 a year and up. With Flickr, Snapfish, Shutterfly, and similar online services, you can store and categorize your digital photos. Of course, relying on online storage requires two leaps of faith: faith in the company’s durability, that it will still have your notes and pictures two years or ten years from now; and faith in its integrity, that it won’t share your information. My own most important backup system consists of one long-term and one everyday strategy. Every two or three years, when I buy a new desktop or laptop, I make sure that all the contents of the old machine are copied onto the new one. I may have trouble later on decoding those files that are in WordStar format, but at least I know where they are. Laplink’s PCmover, at $39.95 and up, automates this process. Then, every day, I sync up any new or altered files between my desktop and laptop machines. For this I use the popular transfer software Laplink Gold, which requires your two computers to be connected—either physically with cables, or wirelessly over a network. It costs around $100. Services like GoTo MyPC and Laplink Everywhere allow you to connect to your home PC over the Internet and sync up files, for fees of around $100 to $180 per year. The main leap is recognizing that preserving data will be an ongoing semi-hygienic chore, like brushing your teeth or taking out the trash. But this ongoing chore, at least, offers hope for a happy outcome. James Fallows is a national correspondent for The Atlantic.
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