Music industry hard drives from the 1990s are dying, archivists warn
nme.comMix published last month (August 19), shared by Wired yesterday (September 13), archiving specialists Iron Mountain Media and Archive Services shared their results from a survey of its vaults – which contain hard drives belonging to music industry clients, among others.The survey revealed that “around one-fifth” of its inventory are unreadable. “That means there are historic sessions from the early to mid-’90s that are dying,” claims Iron Mountain Media’s Robert Koszela to Mix.“In our line of work, if we discover an inherent problem with a format, it makes sense to let everybody know,” Koszela, who previously worked at record label Universal Music Group, continues. “It may sound like a sales pitch, but it’s not; it’s a call for action.”Prior to the 1990s, the majority of studio recordings and masters were stored on magnetic tape, which were handed to storage once used to press mass copies of albums on vinyl, CD, and cassette tape, among other formats.
Magnetic tape requires optimum storage conditions to prolong its life – otherwise, deterioration of the tape is more than likely to happen, rendering it partially damaged or unplayable for future use.Since the mid-1990s, music labels had begun to turn to hard drive storage to store either digitally-recorded music produced with digital audio workstations (DAWs), or digital tape transfers of past catalogues – with the belief that such storage is more resilient to aging than magnetic tape.
Read more on nme.com