There’s a massive misconception of digital formats, that somehow if something’s digital it’ll last forever in a pristine state. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth: because digital formats are so intolerant of any error, they’re actually more susceptible to physical harm than analog formats. (If you don’t believe me, compare a vinyl LP with some scratches on it to a CD with a single scratch.)

Now, the question is, how dedicated are you to proper care and feeding of your discs? Enough to care whether you’re handling your CDs and Blu-ray discs according to an internationally-recognized standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (better known as ISO … not IOS)? Got 108 Swiss francs burning a hole in your pocket and want some unusually dry bedside reading?

ISO 18938:2008 addresses the issues of physical integrity of the medium necessary to preserve access to the recorded data. These include:

• use and handling environments, including pollutants, temperature and humidity and light exposure
• contamination concerns
• inspection
• cleaning and maintenance, including cleaning methods and frequency
• transportation
• disasters, including water, fire, construction and post-disaster procedures
• staff training

I kid, of course – I imagine there could be some utility to this document for people who depend on optical storage and want this sort of official document. I will say, though, ISO – any thought of releasing a free executive summary for everyone else?

New ISO standard gives recommendations for care of optical discs [iso.org]

Proper care and handling isn’t the only challenge facing optically-stored digital information. The materials from which discs are made don’t last forever. (They don’t bio-degrade, either, but what they will do is fatigue and age to the point that you can’t read the information on them or return them to the Earth, ashes to ashes style.)

So, I’m curious, optical experts out there? What do you recommend for care of optical discs? And for long-term archiving, what sort of options do people have?

We live and die by hard drives for music. There’s no substitute for redundancy and backups (hey, you could be Matthew Dear and have a drive stolen during your set). But it is helpful to know whether a drive is healthy or not. S.M.A.R.T. monitoring features built into drives can help.

Lifehacker today points to a free Windows utility for the job called CrystalDiskInfo:

CrystalDiskInfo Monitors Hard Drive Health and Uptime [via gHacks]

But that got me thinking about other tools. There’s quite a range of choices for Mac, Windows, Linux, and even some obscure operating systems. The only bad news: generally you’ll only be able to monitor internal drives, unless your external drive is eSATA rather than USB or FireWire. (eSATA is where I’d like to go generally – it’s quite a lot faster, and frees up your USB and FireWire buses for other things — but that’s a discussion for another day.)

Dateline: Brooklyn. Yeah, you’ve heard all sorts of stories about hard drive failure rates and why you should back up. But here’s a new one: someone might steal your hard drive, while it’s plugged into your laptop, in the middle of a set, as happened to Matthew Dear earlier this month.. Given that hard drives are worth about ten bucks each at this point, we can only assume this is some twisted fan crime. I’d like to respond:

Yo! Earth to useless hipster: this is New York. We used to have real crime here, not you jacking someone’s external FireWire box. Jeez.

I’m a little late on this — the crime took place April 4 at Galapagos’ Bunker party (formerly at Tonic).

Matthew Dear’s harddrive was stolen @ Galapagos [Brooklyn Vegan, via Dance Tracks Digital]

Some jerk in comments on DTD says, "Who cares hwo mucgh creativity is therein blippy tracks that lst 45 minutes." [sic] Aside from Pete’s complete inability to spell the easiest words in the English language, he’s risking some major bad karma by writing that — well, unless he plays with theft-proof wax cylinders, that is.

For reasons that escape me, this whole incident sends the Brooklyn Vegan rock-loving crowd into a frenzy of anti-computer, pro-guitar rhetoric. Yes, that must be it — God Himself took Matthew’s hard drive, because playing music out of computers is the Devil’s work. The classic “FireWire Smite” move.

“The storage device that you just removed was not properly put away before being stolen from this computer. Your set may have been damaged or lost. In the future, please play a banjo, or risk eternal damnation. Greetings, Professor Falken. Shall we play a game?”

Not really a whole lot I can say about this one — and I’m sure you could just fashion your own if you wanted, which I will say would be a great way for me to stop forgetting where I put my 2 gig flash drive. But this does suggest that, somewhere deep inside, people still like music represented as material objects, whatever Last.fm may say. (That’s why I’m glad Last.fm can snoop while I listen to CDs, posting my listening habits for the universe.)

Suck UK USB Mixtape @ Turntable Lab

Now if I could just use it as an iLok dongle… hmm… (iLok, you listening? Packaging matters.)

Side note: when we see CDs as retro nostalgia items, we’re all officially OLD.

Bizarre but adorable, Gibson has turned their iconic 1959 Les Paul guitar into a miniaturized replica, a functioning USB 2.0 1 GB Flash Drive. It will store data. It will not make any sound. But it does have specs that you, erm, don’t normally get out of a guitar: 14Mbps read / 6MBps write, 9 year data retention, LED indicator, and USB extension cable.

Gibson Signature Series Les Paul Flash Drive

No one told me, but Gibson has introduced an entire line of consumer electronics, including HDMI cables, hard drives, speakers, surge protectors (really), and DVD recorders. Odd, but … okay. I’m sure it has something to do with distribution or other business voodoo I don’t understand. Gibson’s a really, really big company with lots of brands, so someone with more knowledge of the company might be able to explain this.

Apparently even this flash drive is just the first of a series of “Signature Series” flash drives miniaturizing classic Gibson guitars. No word on price, but you can sign up to win one free.

I’m not sure what made Gibson decide to get into the flash drive game, but I wish they’d gone with bigger storage. Now I want a (functioning) Theremin flash drive with 16 GB storage. Any takers?

Previous miniature things:

DIY Papercraft Synthesizers: Make Your Own
Tiny Instruments: Strange Pocket Soundmaker Toys from MiJam
Exquisite Miniature Synthesizers, Modular Marimba, Made from Paper
Bob Moog as action figure
Mobile Guitar Studios, complete with Fender keychains
Miniature Studios: Gear Lust Meets Toys ‘R Us