Why you need to make archives, and how to
We back up to ensure that we can recover files, whole volumes, our complete Mac if needed. When that crucial document you were working on earlier has vanished, or becomes damaged, or disaster strikes a disk, backups are essential. But how do you preserve all those documents that used to come on paper, records, correspondence and certificates? How will you or your successors be able to retrieve them in ten or thirty years time? This brief article considers how you should archive them safely, which isn’t the same as backing them up.
By archiving, I mean putting precious files somewhere they can be retrieved in at least ten years time. They may include financial, business, employment and personal records, as well as all finished work that you want to record for posterity. For most, they’ll also include a careful selection of still images, movies, and the more important documents you might create, such as books, theses and papers. They’re what you and the law want you to keep in perpetuity, and to be able to retrieve even after you’re gone.
To see how this can be achieved, I consider: the storage medium to be used, file formats that will be retrievable, how to index them for access, physical storage conditions, and the checks of their integrity that are needed.
