posted by ASSEMbler on Oct 23, 2010:
From 1988 to 2001ish
I have a huge box containing their data archive.
Hundreds of tapes
Too much for one person to do.
Ideas?
14TB of tape data
14TB of tape data
posted by lucas93 on Oct 23, 2010:
The only thing I can think of is sell a 'lucky dip' of tapes to other members and allow them to process and share what's on them (sell 10 tapes to one person, 10 to another, etc).
But that's an issue if you want to keep the tapes.
The only thing I can think of is sell a 'lucky dip' of tapes to other members and allow them to process and share what's on them (sell 10 tapes to one person, 10 to another, etc).
But that's an issue if you want to keep the tapes.
14TB of tape data
posted by ASSEMbler on Oct 23, 2010:
No, they are degrading slowly. I wouldn't sell them as I would want the data released.
No, they are degrading slowly. I wouldn't sell them as I would want the data released.
14TB of tape data
posted by lucas93 on Oct 23, 2010:
Oh just realised I forgot to add the part where the people who buy them take the data off the tapes.
Then again, there is a risk the data still doesn't get released.
Oh just realised I forgot to add the part where the people who buy them take the data off the tapes.
Then again, there is a risk the data still doesn't get released.
14TB of tape data
posted by la-li-lu-le-lo on Oct 23, 2010:
Maybe you could pay someone else to process them. If it were a professional whose job it was to process the files, then the chances of him just keeping the tapes for himself or whatever would be fairly slim. You could have them copy all of the data to hard drives and then you could categorize what's in there and make a poll or something to see what people want to be released. If it takes too long just to figure out what's in there, then you could send out the hard drives to other people and then they could collectively sort through it. The worst case scenario if you did that would be that you lose the data on the hard drives, but you would still have the tapes.
Of course all of that would cost a good deal of money. I guess it depends on how much you want the stuff to be released.
Maybe you could pay someone else to process them. If it were a professional whose job it was to process the files, then the chances of him just keeping the tapes for himself or whatever would be fairly slim. You could have them copy all of the data to hard drives and then you could categorize what's in there and make a poll or something to see what people want to be released. If it takes too long just to figure out what's in there, then you could send out the hard drives to other people and then they could collectively sort through it. The worst case scenario if you did that would be that you lose the data on the hard drives, but you would still have the tapes.
Of course all of that would cost a good deal of money. I guess it depends on how much you want the stuff to be released.
14TB of tape data
posted by ASSEMbler on Oct 23, 2010:
I had the idea of trustworthy people acquiring one of the kind of drives we need. That person would be sent a few tapes to do and share. There are at least 15 kinds of tapes.We would have the 15 people each with a drive and work from there.
That or do the 80's first as it may be the most interesting.
I had the idea of trustworthy people acquiring one of the kind of drives we need. That person would be sent a few tapes to do and share. There are at least 15 kinds of tapes.We would have the 15 people each with a drive and work from there.
That or do the 80's first as it may be the most interesting.
14TB of tape data
posted by Flyinghigh on Oct 23, 2010:
Assemblers Idea is good.
What kind of brands are these Tapes? I mean what kind of drives do we need?
I think the 80s and 90s are very interesting. It sounds like that this 14TB data are the full Company Backup. Thats a huge amount of Data so it wont be so easy to ditribute it.
I mean it was not very easy to share 45 GB of data and to have 14TB to save all this is highly unlikely.
I guess it will be better to just share very interesting Things like artworks alpha or beta versions or sourcecode of games or unrelesed games at the beginning. I guess there is also some Business Data (Numbers and Calculations) there, i dont know how interesting this is to share?
Do have the tapes some password protection?
Assemblers Idea is good.
What kind of brands are these Tapes? I mean what kind of drives do we need?
I think the 80s and 90s are very interesting. It sounds like that this 14TB data are the full Company Backup. Thats a huge amount of Data so it wont be so easy to ditribute it.
I mean it was not very easy to share 45 GB of data and to have 14TB to save all this is highly unlikely.
I guess it will be better to just share very interesting Things like artworks alpha or beta versions or sourcecode of games or unrelesed games at the beginning. I guess there is also some Business Data (Numbers and Calculations) there, i dont know how interesting this is to share?
Do have the tapes some password protection?
14TB of tape data
posted by Does_anyone on Oct 23, 2010:
I could always fish out my old tape drives, I'd be willing to up the challenge, mind giving details on what tapes these are?
I could always fish out my old tape drives, I'd be willing to up the challenge, mind giving details on what tapes these are?
14TB of tape data
posted by rso on Oct 23, 2010:
Just my two cents:
I'd think there's gonna be lots of duplicates in there, so restoring/reading the tapes chronologically would make the most sense. That way it'd be possible to only distribute new/changed files instead of each tape's whole contents.
At the very least, they should be grouped by age, though I guess that's gonna happen automagically anyways, due to the tapes staying of the same type for a period of a few years (unless maybe Acclaim switched backup hardware around like crazy, but "15 types of tape" over a few decades sounds reasonable).
Speaking of new/changed files, probably most interesting in the case of source code - how the heck would one organize that into a "flat" file system hierarchy? Any ideas?
I agree that 14TB would be way too big though, even if you take into account the likelihood of dupes like I mentioned above, which would decrease that amount somewhat. Maybe do it MAMEburners-like, i.e. physically mailing HDs around? If someone thinks it'd be a good idea to torrent it anyways later, why not, and there'd already be some other people around to help seed.
Just my two cents:
I'd think there's gonna be lots of duplicates in there, so restoring/reading the tapes chronologically would make the most sense. That way it'd be possible to only distribute new/changed files instead of each tape's whole contents.
At the very least, they should be grouped by age, though I guess that's gonna happen automagically anyways, due to the tapes staying of the same type for a period of a few years (unless maybe Acclaim switched backup hardware around like crazy, but "15 types of tape" over a few decades sounds reasonable).
Speaking of new/changed files, probably most interesting in the case of source code - how the heck would one organize that into a "flat" file system hierarchy? Any ideas?
45GB is nothing, I've handled torrents upwards of 100GB with a few even going above 200, without (major) problems. (I didn't like the idea of splitting it into chunks, that then get wrapped into DVD images, but beggars can't be choosers, right?).
Silverhawk said:
I mean it was not very easy to share 45 GB of data and to have 14TB to save all this is highly unlikely.
I agree that 14TB would be way too big though, even if you take into account the likelihood of dupes like I mentioned above, which would decrease that amount somewhat. Maybe do it MAMEburners-like, i.e. physically mailing HDs around? If someone thinks it'd be a good idea to torrent it anyways later, why not, and there'd already be some other people around to help seed.
14TB of tape data
posted by angelwolf71885 on Oct 23, 2010:
and given that tapes expire after 5 or 10 years from that era
so there is a good chane the early years are already lost
my suggestion would be start a donashion goal pool
to buy a few cheep computers that can fit the tap dives
as well as to get the tape drives in the first place
and enough 3 TB drives to fill the need
and just start riping the crap out of the data and burning it to dvd or blu-ray
then relise
the earlyist tapes should take prioraty because they are in the most danger
ASSEMbler said:
I had the idea of trustworthy people acquiring one of the kind of drives we need. That person would be sent a few tapes to do and share. There are at least 15 kinds of tapes.We would have the 15 people each with a drive and work from there.
That or do the 80's first as it may be the most interesting.
and given that tapes expire after 5 or 10 years from that era
so there is a good chane the early years are already lost
my suggestion would be start a donashion goal pool
to buy a few cheep computers that can fit the tap dives
as well as to get the tape drives in the first place
and enough 3 TB drives to fill the need
and just start riping the crap out of the data and burning it to dvd or blu-ray
then relise