Like I’d imagine there’s gonna be a lot of rain over time if I want this time capsule to last like idk 10 years? 30 years?
Is there like a box so tough its indestructible?
Can animals dig it up if I bury it?
How deep do it bury it?
Is the earth’s magnetism gonna affect the hard drive? (Or is there a better medium?)
Like I want this to be like very low budget, I don’t have millions to build an actual timecapsule like some organizations have done. Is there some cheap box that’s waterproof to protect a hard drive from damage for like 30 years buried in the ground?
You don’t use a hard drive. USB sticks would be easier and more likely to survive I think. SD cards are another option.
Flash isn’t a good long-term storage option. It relies on an electrical charge to store the data, and will discharge over time. It’s literally physically storing electrons, but those electrons are constantly trying to escape. Good flash may last 7-10 years without being plugged in, but the standard off-the-shelf stuff will be dead much quicker.
Tape or M-DISC are the gold standards, though both are more expensive than flash. Tape is by far the single most resilient method; it can even be reconstructed if it is physically damaged. But it’s also the least convenient and most expensive. M-DISC is a nice middle ground. It’s essentially just a burned disc, but made with materials that won’t rot over time like standard burned discs will. So storage is as simple as storing regular discs. Though if you’re truly trying to apocalypse-proof it, you’d probably want to consider bunkering/burying them somewhere to protect from physical destruction.
Wait… Tape is more resilient than m-disc? What? How? Doesn’t tape rot or melt or decay faster than m-disc?
Good flash memory might last a decade, maybe a bit more.
Average flash memory probably won’t.
But those rely on electricity to keep their bits in the right position, so leaving them unplugged for a long time means they could lose the charge on the bits.
Uhhh… I don’t know about all that. But putting something with moving parts like a hard drive into dirt unless you really really seal it well is not a good bet.
He’s right, flash media loses data as unplugged flash memory loses charge over time. It’s called charge leakage in flash memory, it’s a well-known phenomenon.
A hard drive might work, but, it would need to be stored in some sort of sealed box to keep it safe. It would probably help to also go with optical media as well, assuming we still have something able to read it in X number of years, which we should.
In general though, you’d want multiple copies, as with any data the 3-2-1 backup rule applies, so unfortunately for OP this isn’t necessarily something you can do with a very low budget.