0

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.

davidgo
  • 6,222
  • 3
  • 23
  • 41
jew
  • 11
  • 7
  • Did you mean bit rot? These cartridges are apparently standard data disks with physical protection and some kind of abstraction. I expect bit rot is more likely with the ssd drives! – davidgo Jun 02 '20 at 03:50
  • Yes, I thought "rot" is a shorter for "rotation", but this isn't true at all. I found a good articel to bit rot:https://www.howtogeek.com/660727/bit-rot-how-hard-drives-and-ssds-die-over-time/. I correct this. Also, the SSD is more affected as I thought. Because of the non magnetic parts i hoped it is free of bit rot. So you mentioned the RDX drives bring some ECC methods with it like enterprise class drives for storage? – jew Jun 02 '20 at 12:15
  • I don't know (and never suggested that) the RDX has ECC or similar. I looked into it and can't find evidence of this - and indeed the drive sizing strongly suggests they are regular drives without using ecc (as the storage matches typical drive sizes, where ecc takes up space). My comment was around not being able to take the disk out the cassette and just read the files directly.) – davidgo Jun 02 '20 at 18:56
  • The article you linked to is overly simplistic with respect of bit rot. If you advise more on your goal we can maybe assist you better. For example There is software that can backup and add parity (but this may not help if whole sectors of disks are unreadable). I can also think of strategies to enable writing files too 2 places on the disk, and know that zfs handles bit rot. – davidgo Jun 02 '20 at 19:03
  • I want to evaluate this technolgy in question of daily practise. I declare my thoughts a bit more detailed. – jew Jun 02 '20 at 19:43
  • I have rewritten the question to be easier to read. Can you confirm I have not lost your meaning? – davidgo Jun 02 '20 at 20:20
  • the core is correct, but now the research and details are missing – jew Jun 02 '20 at 20:33
  • I'm not sure what relevant research or details are missing, but if you click on "edited" you can copy and paste the old version back (and, of-course, I respect you enough to leave it alone). My concern is that I found the question difficult to read, and I fear others will see a wall of hard-to-read text and just move on to the next question. – davidgo Jun 02 '20 at 20:36
  • After looking through the promo for the product https://youtu.be/VQJRdcMMS2o I doubt that there is anything special going on to avoid Disk Rot. At 1:12 they specifically say the disks are "the same disks used in other HP products". I get the distinct impression these are regular disks for small businesses for use as part of a wider backup strategy. I do note that hard drives generally provide > 10 years of offline storage. (Pinning down a reliable source evidencing this has proven elusive though!) – davidgo Jun 02 '20 at 20:39
  • I think if your version or my "difficult to read" version is online make no difference. No other answer will be posted to my question. – jew Jun 02 '20 at 20:44

1 Answers1

0

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.
davidgo
  • 6,222
  • 3
  • 23
  • 41
  • thanks for your engagement davidgo. My research make the impression that these better Laptop drives, like you find out, are put in electrical radiation safe boxes with soft cover. therefore bit rot do not have these deeper impact to the spindle surface. @davidgo: now you can translate ;-) – jew Jun 02 '20 at 21:40