Are RDX drives a scam? (Practical long-term storage dilemmas)

[winnielinnie]

I've recently been bumping into the terms "RDX Drive" and "RDX Cartridges" when looking at affordable and easy-to-use tape solutions for home users, as a means to archive irreplaceable data for long term (10+ years, cold storage).

Brilliant marketing. RDX Cartridges designed to resemble their tape counterparts, but are fundamentally different storage technologies.



My idea would be to dump data and files (photos, videos, documents) that never change, yet are sentimental and valuable. However, I want physical media that I will take the responsibility of protecting and safeguarding (e.g, fireproof safe, vault, storage unit, etc). Third-party cloud storage would not be a preferable option for me.

At first glance, RDX may not appear inexpensive, compared to standard hard drive counterparts, but they boast a long shelf life in cold storage. I've seen ranges listed from 10 to 30 years.

Here is where my confusion and skepticism begin: Further research shows that they are SATA drives within an external enclosure. I'm scratching my head to understand how they claim to have tape-like archival qualities, even in cold storage for 10+ years.

These are some excerpts from what I could find, yet I still don't get what "stands out" compared to your typical SATA drive. For all intents and purposes, you could do with these what can be done to any SATA drive in terms of random read/write access (unlike a tape drive.)

Overland Tandberg RDX Media:

The RDX media is ideal for backup, restore and long-term archiving tasks.

[...]

A 10 years archival life and unlimited compatibility of drive- and media-generations are the best prerequisite for long term archiving of your data, like customer records, financial files or business documents, but also videos, photos or music.

What's Inside an RDX Cartridge? It's What's Inside That Counts

The Tandberg Data RDX QuikStor is a disk-based storage system with removable cartridges that offers rugged, reliable and convenient backup, ideal for the SOHO and SMB markets. With SuperSpeed USB 3.0, the system provides performance up to 180MB/s.

(...)

First it's a polycarbonate case, able to withstand lots of shock, as well as dissipate electrostatic shock that might happen.

(T)here's a SATA connection, so as long as you're able to provide power through a SATA connection you get at your data well over 30yrs from now.

Looking inside, one of the important features is the copper strap which connects the drive to the case, to dissipate any electrostatic charge (...) protecting the drive.

You see the rubber mounting on the outside that help protect if from the shock as well.

(S)ealed bearings that can last likely 50yrs.

A very important feature of an RDX technology is the ramp loaded heads. The heads that normally float over the disk drive while it's seeking data, when it's not in use it's powered down these are pulled away from the media locked down, that's important for two reasons: One is the shock, the other sticktion.

(A)vailable in ranges from 500GB up to 2TB, able to keep it on the shelf for 30yrs in a rugged package that's protected from shock and any other abuse you may run into.

Sure, the rubber bumpers protect it against damage from shock, such as accidental drops. Yet that has nothing to do with device and data integrity in cold storage. Then there's the mention of "ramp-loaded heads" which is worded vaguely. (I'm still not sure how they differ from modern hard drives.) Finally, there's a mention of a copper strap, which touches the case itself, to dissipate static charge. None of these "features" seem to directly address data integrity during cold storage.

Does anyone have any experience with RDX drives and cartridges? Are they a scam? Is it simply marketing gobely goo? Just a fancy enclosure for a standard SATA drive? How do these cartridges supposedly keep your data safe for 10 to 30 years?

They are marketed and sold alongside tape cartridges, and the visuals do indeed mimic tape cartridges.

 

[jgreco]

FOR IMMEDIATE PUBLICATION - PRESS RELEASE

Grinchy CrapCo Ltd
January 25th, 1991

Grinchy CrapCo is proud to announce the release of the new PODTARD Archival Media System.

Worried about the obsolescence of those crappy QIC tapes? Never fear. We've taken industry standard Fujitsu M2372K 8 inch Winchester Hard Drives and encapsulated them in a polycarbonate case, able to withstand lots of shock, with rubber corners, and we dissipate electrostatic shock that might happen by use of our innovative Crapper Strap(tm). Oops. I meant Copper Strap.

Never fear, your data will still be retrievable 30 years from now in the year 2021, because we have used the Industry Standard HSMD interface. Just plug it in to whatever the contemporary equivalent of a Xylogics 451 SMD interface is, and have easy fast access to your data!

Our PODTARDs are reasonably priced at only double or triple the cost of an ordinary hard drive. Buy some today!

 

[jgreco]

and for those who don't get it ...

SATA is near the end of its life. It's been around since 2003, and the market for spinny rust is rapidly declining, as flash and NVMe overtake it. You'll still be able to get hardware to access SATA ten years from now, but it's going to be very rough at 20 or 30 years.

The likelihood is that I could probably spin up the Fuji M2372K that sits on my "Evolution of Storage" display in my office, and read all the bits, if I could cobble together the correct electronics for doing so. Honestly, it is more likely that I'd have better luck if I were to hook up a Raspberry Pi and write some code to "speak" HSMD on its GPIO pins. But as a practical matter, it is not a good choice for archival media, just as I do not expect that a SATA HDD is a good choice.

This is actually a fascinating issue. The advent of mass storage and the Internet have both created new challenges for permanence, and evolution of file formats have caused archivists new challenges. Can you open a PDF from 20 years ago successfully? GIF? What happens when a web site goes offline, or a URL is relocated?

I wouldn't buy these things. Simply because the cost is ridiculous. I either burn backups on archival grade Taiyo Yuden DVD media, or onto low-mileage HDD's inserted into a trayless hotswap bay, which I then place in a protective enclosure. I haven't tried these Orico ones, but I may switch to them. Or you can just buy something like a WD EasyStore and leave the drive in its existing enclosure. Cheap PLUS easy.

 

[Chris Moore]

and for those who don't get it ...

I thought it was hilarious... I was going to try to explain, but I don't think I could do as well as you.

as a means to archive irreplaceable data for long term (10+ years, cold storage).

Just to have my say, and I will try to be brief, you should plan to move your data to new media every three to five years. All the data you want to save that is.

Here is why, from personal experience, where I work.

We had some folks in one of our departments bring out a stack of 5.25 inch floppy disks that they wanted to retrieve survey data from. An ocean survey that would cost millions of dollars to do (in today's dollars) because of the ship time involved. They even had a floppy drive that they thought should work. Know why we couldn't make it happen? We could only find one computer that had an interface to connect the drive to and that computer didn't recognize the drive. Turns out the BIOS firmware only supported newer 3.5 inch drives.

Same group had some really old tapes 4mm DAT if I recall, but we couldn't read them either. In this case it was a SCSI interface, but the software that encoded the data on the tape was not available any more, and the new software was not able to interpret the data on tape.

The point... time does not stand still and you should never expect technology to stay the same, not even for ten years. If you want to keep the data as an archive or as a backup for online data, it isn't really a backup if you can't access it. Move the data periodically or make a new backup, something, but don't expect it to just sit for ten or twenty years and still work when you go back to it.

 

[ChrisRJ]

@Chris Moore , congrats for making it to 10k messages

As to retrieval of "historic" data, that is something that most people underestimate greatly. I am therefore quite happy that most of my papers were written in LaTeX. But I have a spreadsheet with all the money I spent on my Commodore 128 and first 286 PC, which was created with Borland's Quattro Pro 1. It would be a nice trip back into my own past to see all this, but I have so far been unable to recover it.

 

[Chris Moore]

@Chris Moore , congrats for making it to 10k messages

I didn't even notice. Thanks.

which was created with Borland's Quattro Pro 1.

That brings up a very valid point. Just because you can access the data, doesn't make the data able to be used. The application that created the data must still be available.

 

[winnielinnie]

Our PODTARDs are reasonably priced at only double or triple the cost of an ordinary hard drive. Buy some today!

Shucks! I thought you had something to offer. I was about to make a bulk order of your specialty Grinchy CrapCo PODTARDs.™ Thanks for the laugh! So the short answer is "yes, it's a scam." Though, I do love me a nice, long read. Call me "anti-TL;DR".

This is actually a fascinating issue. The advent of mass storage and the Internet have both created new challenges for permanence, and evolution of file formats have caused archivists new challenges. Can you open a PDF from 20 years ago successfully? GIF? What happens when a web site goes offline, or a URL is relocated?

This has been more evident recently, mainly due to (as you alluded) hardware standards and connectors. I'm not so much worried about file formats and software to read it. (Even to this day, I can boot up a live session of a very old or very recent Linux distro, whether from a CD-R, or USB stick, or SSD drive.) The files in question are mainly JPEGs, PNGs, PDFs, Word documents, and audio/video formats from FLAC to MP3 to QuickTime MOV to MPEG-2 to H264. I can't imagine there would exist no software in the future that could not read nor playback such files; especially when newer versions of said software place an emphasis on backwards compatibility and legacy support. (Irrespective of "full support", an example would be the open-source LibreOffice suite. If you wish to read or revisit an old Microsoft Word document, it can display it, on any platform, no problem.)

You'll still be able to get hardware to access SATA ten years from now, but it's going to be very rough at 20 or 30 years.

This seems like more of a realistic issue decades from now, which I guess can only be mitigated by doing what @Chris Moore suggests (quoted below.) I was hoping to complement my idea (write once, store safely for decades) alongside the continual "re-copying everything to the latest media / standards."

The point... time does not stand still and you should never expect technology to stay the same, not even for ten years. If you want to keep the data as an archive or as a backup for online data, it isn't really a backup if you can't access it. Move the data periodically or make a new backup, something, but don't expect it to just sit for ten or twenty years and still work when you go back to it.

Here is why, from personal experience, where I work.
(...)

That is concerning, for long-term archiving. Intuitively I'm thinking to myself "Surely people will have access to USB ports or some sort of adapter to plug in XYZ device and access the irreplaceable data?"



What is a home-user to do?
At first my idea was to install a basic 5.25" internal tape drive into my TrueNAS box, purchase a few cartridges, and then manually (even in a shell) copy over the files in question. Nothing fancy, nothing automated, nothing complex. When I'm done, I pop it out, label the cartridge, then store it away safely. Write once, store indefinitely. "Fire and forget."

I considered an external tape drive, so that if someone else, such as a trusted friend or family member gained access to it, they would have the necessary hardware required to access the data.

Two things made me reconsider and nearly scrap this idea: (1) I have no experience in using tape, and (2) writing to tape from a FreeBSD-based system (i.e, FreeNAS and TrueNAS) is apparently reserved for masochists.

Around this time I kept bumping into the eyebrow-raising "RDX Cartridges". (Won't get into that. I can always order a batch of PODTARDs™, if I'm so inclined. You accept checks, @jgreco ?)

What I wish to accomplish is a fairly straightforward solution (or so I thought) that does not implement any sort of "automation" nor "frequent rotation": While I am making backups (external USBs, internal drives, storing remotely, etc) "keeping up with the ever-changing standards", I want to also dump specific irreplaceable data from my TrueNAS box (files which never change) onto physical media that I can securely store, in which I needn't worry about deterioration after ten years or so. I would prefer such media to be readable for some time to come, and to be accessible to someone with a minimal-to-moderate amount of tech-savvy, if something were to happen to me. (This is why "RDX" caught my attention at first.)

Without getting into anything personal or providing too much detail, here is a sample of the data I am referring to:

• Very Old Photos
  • Most of which I still possess the original negatives
  • Generations old, before my time
  • Cannot rely on the original "analog" material (nor do I want to rely on it)
• Many Other Photos
  • More recently taken (or scanned, if taken prior to digital cameras)
  • Can add up in size due to the sheer number of files
• Audio Cassette Recordings
  • Converted to digital
  • WAV, FLAC, and MP3 formats
  • Tape is deteriorating to the point that if I had waited longer, the speech would be hard to discern
• Very Old Videos
  • Digitally converted from 8mm tape
  • Cannot rely on the original "analog" material (nor do I want to rely on it)
• Many Other Videos
  • More recently recorded (or converted, if recorded prior to digital recorders)
  • Requires a lot of storage space
• Very Old Scanned Writings
  • Hand-written notes and documents; some old pages
  • Some could not be "scanned" on a flat bed; had to take a photo of them
• Miscellaneous Files
  • Documents, legal-, personal-, family-related items
  • CD images and disk images of hybrid collections
  • These can get very large in size

Now I am considering M-Discs, with an external USB reader/writer. (The M-Discs and the external reader/writer would be stored together, so that whoever gains access to them has everything they need to retrieve the data; at least ideally.) Supposedly, M-Discs are "write once, and keep for 1,000 years" because they use a higher-powered laser to "engrave" into an inorganic material. I guess the Stone Age is making a comeback?

Of course, this approach would mean I am limited to 25GB, 50GB, or 100GB per disc. (Might not be an issue, need to do an "inventory" first.) I wouldn't be able to do this directly on the TrueNAS box, however, as it would require "burning" everything via an SMB network share from another PC.



After reading everyone's replies in here, this endeavor feels like a nonstop game of Evil Musical Chairs.

 

[winnielinnie]

That brings up a very valid point. Just because you can access the data, doesn't make the data able to be used. The application that created the data must still be available.

This seems less of a problem with open-source software. One can always provide a binary copy of said software, and its source code, and an OS-image (e.g, the same Linux distro it was successfully accessed with), as a means to provide whomever with the tools needed to access the file if they are unable to do so with their own setup. Maybe I am naive, but I have yet to bump into the issue of being unable to properly open a file, to this day. But unlike others here, I did not work with particular software or formats, such as Borland's Quattro Pro 1. (See my post above for a sample of what types of files I'm referring to.)

 

[Chris Moore]

For the time being, using external USB hard drives might be the most 'compatible' solution. The thing is, you can't expect that to last forever. It will need to be copied to new media periodically.

 

[jgreco]

Shucks! I thought you had something to offer. I was about to make a bulk order of your specialty Grinchy CrapCo PODTARDs.™ Thanks for the laugh! So the short answer is "yes, it's a scam." Though, I do love me a nice, long read. Call me "anti-TL;DR".

Well, it's not so much a scam as it is a "buyer beware." You can buy yourself a Ford Excursion SUV or a Ford Escape SUV, but you will be getting very different vehicles with very different capabilities despite both being labeled an "SUV".

If I wanted a packaged HDD that pretended to be a tape, and maybe had some firmware tweaks and possible better quality of hardware than conventional HDD, maybe, *MAYBE* I would consider the RDX things.

That is concerning, for long-term archiving. Intuitively I'm thinking to myself "Surely people will have access to USB ports or some sort of adapter to plug in XYZ device and access the irreplaceable data?"

And yet if you look at the average lifespan of past interconnection technologies, there was a time when everyone swore that serial ports and Xmodem would never go away. As discussed elsewhere in this thread, it's not necessarily that it will be entirely impossible, but it may well be difficult enough. Another issue is complexity. It used to be that protocols such as ESDI were reasonably simple standards and that it wouldn't be too hard to dummy something up, but the electronic complexity of something like the modern SAS standard could be a much tougher barrier, even though these come from the same evolutionary channel. There are people out there doing mainframe restoration work using Raspberry Pi's and stuff like that to emulate storage systems for which media is no longer available, and existing stocks are effectively too old to be usable. That's possible in part to the simplicity aspect. We've gotten a lot more complex, and I'm not sure that's good.

After reading everyone's replies in here, this endeavor feels like a nonstop game of Evil Musical Chairs.

Your awareness is such that you are at least a lot closer to having success if you try it.

 

[jgreco]

This seems less of a problem with open-source software. One can always provide a binary copy of said software, and its source code, and an OS-image (e.g, the same Linux distro it was successfully accessed with),

That's fine... until the software you're trying to run is i386, and the world has since moved on through arm64, found that to be too limiting, and gone on to yet another CPU design that we've yet to imagine. That is likely to happen in the next 30 years. The big thing that kept i386/amd64 around so long was the prevalence of Windows, and that's on the decline, plus Windows is being ported to arm64.

I remember my lovely 680x0 based systems ... one of 'em is nailed to the wall here.

 

[Arwen]

I use M-Discs for archival storage, and many Blu-ray burners will burn M-Discs. Of course, I made the mistake of buying 25GB ones, before I bothered to check my "critical" media, which ends up being less than 4.7GB single layer DVD size.

My next M-Disc burn is going to use OpenZFS as the file system. Sure, I can use what ever is most common for burned media. But, that won't allow me to use;

• Checksums to detect file corruption
• Some more important datasets would have "copies=2"
• Encrypted dataset for some of the files

As for transportable 3.5" storage boxes, I don't use any wimpy Orico ones. Had to go over-kill;

Seahorse SE120 protective case
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001A1PT7W

 

[jgreco]

As for transportable 3.5" storage boxes, I don't use any wimpy Orico ones. Had to go over-kill;

Seahorse SE120 protective case
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001A1PT7W

Yes, that's a great idea, because if the cops stop you while you're lugging drives around, it's just dandy if they think your backseat is full of guns.

 

[Newfoundland.Republic]

Interesting question: How do we access data on x many years from now? I recall the US Library of Congress looked into this about 10 years ago. After about mucho dollars later, they said there was no easy solution: can't read the computer media, don't have the application, application can't run on available hardware, etc. etc. The only answer: print it out and use microfiche. All you need is a magnifying glass...

 

[jgreco]

They're not the only ones. Look at the challenges the Internet Archive faces. The current devops trends have created a lot of fragility and interdependence on the web, for example. It used to be that you could go to a website and just simply archive it, and maybe there would be a few links off of it to other sites. Not so easy on most modern websites anymore.

 

[Newfoundland.Republic]

Too true. With dynamic websites you really cannot get all the content anymore

 

[ccssid]

I use M-Discs for archival storage, and many Blu-ray burners will burn M-Discs. Of course, I made the mistake of buying 25GB ones, before I bothered to check my "critical" media, which ends up being less than 4.7GB single layer DVD size.

My next M-Disc burn is going to use OpenZFS as the file system. Sure, I can use what ever is most common for burned media. But, that won't allow me to use;

• Checksums to detect file corruption
• Some more important datasets would have "copies=2"
• Encrypted dataset for some of the files

As for transportable 3.5" storage boxes, I don't use any wimpy Orico ones. Had to go over-kill;

Seahorse SE120 protective case
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001A1PT7W

 

[Arwen]

@jgreco & @ccssid You do realize that it's just a water proof, hard shell plastic case with foam padding?

Just because they say gun case, does not mean it's only for guns. Anything you want to store in it, will work.

I had bought Pelican cases in the past, but I thought I would see if I could find a manufacturer from a different country. Here is a similar case from Pelican, (which is weirdly enough the same price);

https://www.amazon.com/Pelican-1120-Case-Foam-Black/dp/B0051QIBUE

 

[ccssid]

@Arwen I thought perhaps for a moment you may want to discuss 1911's

 

[joeschmuck]

I have a small fire proof safe that hold a backup copy of my critical to me data on DVD's. One DVD holds various data, many DVDs hold photos. I have not tested the safe to see if it will actually protect the DVDs from fire damage but it's what I have been doing for a few decades.

The real concern as others have clearly stated, having access to software which will read your data if you ever need to go down that path. Most of my files are in PDF format, a fairly safe format for right now.