How to Future-Proof Your Archives: File Formats That Stand the Test of Time

You may have heard us talk about backup a time or two, and hopefully our love has been clear. So, when Wired gave us a shoutout in their recent, astute article about archiving, allow us to say we were flattered.

As both a tribute and a collaboration, we're happy to build on their article's premise about choosing the correct file type for archiving purposes, and we'll highlight a few tools to help you protect your files in the long term.

Wired reports: Archived files are especially vulnerable to changing file types

Archives are distinct from backups and have their own demands. Backups are intended to give you the ability to restore files or your whole environment-they need to be both in step with your current environment and flexible enough to respond to both a point in time restore of your whole system or a single file, depending on what you need. Archiving, on the other hand, is about preservation when you can't depend on the continuity of devices or digital tools-those tools might look quite different (or not exist at all!) down the line. That said, backups are also an essential building block of digital archives.

Making something last long-term takes more work than you'd think. And, interestingly, digital archiving suffers from the opposite problem of "traditional" archiving. Whereas with books, magazines, and other paper-based media, you want to touch them as little as possible, with digital archives, you actually need to do some active maintenance to make sure you're converting files to accessible formats that you can open well into the future.

Here's an expert from the Wired report telling us about just one part of the practical concerns of digital archiving:

"Twenty years, in the digital realm, is ancient," says Lance Stuchell, director of digital preservation services at the University of Michigan. His team is frequently tasked with recovering digital files from old computers and storage mediums. "We have a lab that can deal with old media-floppy drives, CDs, older computers. We can get that off of those types of media and move it into our preservation system while ensuring we don't mess it up while we're doing it."

Wired goes on to report that the problem isn't just having the correct device, but actually having the correct file type. Their biggest takeaways for making sure your files hold up over time?

1. Use open source file types.
2. If you're storing media, store files uncompressed.
3. Back up absolutely everything.

Check out the rest of the article for details-it's worth a read. And, thanks for the shoutout as a good option for folks looking to back up, Wired.

Some tools for converting files

So, now that you're all geared up to get your archive in order, here are some free, open source tools that will help you convert your files. One note when you're using open source (and we're big fans) is to make sure you're using a tool you trust. And, some tools, especially web-based tools, may collect user data or can expose sensitive information.

With that in mind, here are a few to get you started:

• LibreOffice: The successor to OpenOffice, LibreOffice is a well-respected open source alternative to Microsoft Office and supports several open source and older document file formats.
• Pandoc: Pandoc calls itself the Swiss army knife of file converters for markup formats, which includes documents, HTML formats, spreadsheets, and more. It's got a very helpful list of file formats and indicates whether they can convert from/to each of them.
• ImageMagick: ImageMagick can certainly convert your files, and it's also beloved because it can edit files, including support for scripting and automation. But, for our purposes, it converts image formats and has continuous support from the open source community.
• FFmpeg: FFmpeg is a community supported audio and video tool.
• VLC media player: Another audio and video tool that supports conversion.

Keep in mind that while we're recommending many of these for conversion purposes, many are actually fully-fledged programs with some very cool features-and, some can even replace traditional paid tool options, if you're the budget-conscious type.

Archiving hardware of the future

Standard tech right now for storing archived files is on hard disk drives (HDDs) or solid state drives (SSDs), and you'll even find DVDs that can keep your data stored for 1,000 years or more. All storage media types are known to degrade over time-when you're storing long-term, you can't just leave your drive disconnected from power forever, for instance.

That said, developing storage media types, while not as common, offer some interesting (if not yet widely practical) options. If you're willing to drop some cash, DNA (yes, the biological kind) or ceramic might be for you. And, if you want to get super sci-fi with it, PhysicsWorld has reported on the "Superman memory crystal" that could keep data intact for millions of years.

Build your archive for alien circumstances

When we ambitiously sent out messages to the (potential) sentient life in the universe almost 50 years ago, on golden records no less, we apparently thought it was enough to also include a phonograph needle and some symbolic instructions on how to play the record. In practice, we sent a message with no guarantees that someone could decode and play it.

That may be fine for our space-age time capsule, but for our everyday archives, we do want to do our best to make sure we're able to open them in the future. While we can't anticipate where technology will be in 20, 40, or 100 years, we can follow digital archiving best practices to give future generations the best chance of opening files. At least they'll likely share a language with us, as opposed to our alien friends.

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