<div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><div>> of years - I haven't found any solid numbers). There are archival
quality<br>> hard disks that feature long-life stable oils for the lubrication.<br><br></div>Anyone who is interested in long-term archival should check out M-Disc technology.<br><br><a href="http://www.mdisc.com/what-is-mdisc/">http://www.mdisc.com/what-is-mdisc/</a><br>
<br></div>In short, these discs have a different method of "burning" data onto the physical medium, such that they expect the medium to last thousands of years. They have done some torture testing to back up these claims (i.e. dipping the disc in liquid nitrogen after pulling it out of a 180 degree water bath, also some MIL-SPEC test).<br>
<br></div>Currently, the disks are somewhat expensive ($20/5, or $30/10 at Micro Center) and they require a special burner. LG makes the burners and they are competitively priced (the cheapest USB drive was $30 at Micro Center). They plan to come out with Blu-Ray discs in a few months, and supposedly those will be writable by any Blu-Ray burner.<br>
<br>Cheers,<br></div>-JK<br></div>