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jew
Asked: 2020-06-02 19:43:20 +0800 CST

Bit Rot protection in RDX cartridges?

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Does anyone know about RDX cassettes and bit rot?

I am trying to ascertain the suitability of the disks for long term, off-line storage - and to understand how this technology compares with tape storage and m-disk storage. While the vendor claims "Up to 10 years" storage life, there do not appear to be any specs/details on how this is achieved.

backup data-protection

1 Answers

  1. After researching and finding out these systems use standard SATA drives, and after being unable to establish their suitability for archival purpose I had an online chat with the helpful people at rdworks.com who appear to support these systems.

    Their advice to me was that these are standard industry disks designed to look like tape, but with the same characteristics of regular laptop drives - no added protections. (Indeed the agent admitted that these drives "still can't beat tape though"), so these are just regular drives with better physical protections and a tape-like form factor.

    Here is the transcript of our conversation.

     at 8:51, Jun 3:
Hi David
David Go
 at 8:51, Jun 3:
hello.
Evan
 at 8:52, Jun 3:
What kind of data are you looking to archive?
David Go
 at 8:52, Jun 3:
Does it matter? I'm trying to establish if the drives are more suitable (when sitting in a safe) then regular hard drives. I've been asked about the risk of bit rot.
Evan
 at 8:53, Jun 3:
RDX Cartridges are basically spinning laptop disks.
David Go
 at 8:53, Jun 3:
Are these just regular drives with physical protection or is there more to it then that? (I can see how its possible to make a single drive more resistant to bit rot.
Evan
 at 8:53, Jun 3:
Very durable.
David Go
 at 8:53, Jun 3:
Ok, so just as durable as standard laptop disks then?
Evan
 at 8:54, Jun 3:
Industry standard for removable disk.
Evan
 at 8:54, Jun 3:
Yes
David Go
 at 8:54, Jun 3:
brilliant, ta.
Evan
 at 8:54, Jun 3:
Used by Dell, HP, Lenovo
Evan
 at 8:55, Jun 3:
RDX is designed to look like tape.
Evan
 at 8:55, Jun 3:
Docking station makes it easy to load and unload.
David Go
 at 8:55, Jun 3:
Thank you. That answers my question well.
Evan
 at 8:56, Jun 3:
Still can't beat tape though.
Evan
 at 8:56, Jun 3:
Take care.
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