NDSA Storage Report: Reflections on National Digital Stewardship Alliance Member Approaches to Preservation Storage Technologies

NDSA Storage Report: Reflections on National Digital Stewardship Alliance Member Approaches to Preservation Storage Technologies. Micah Altman, et al. D-Lib Magazine. June 2013.

The structure and design of digital storage systems is a cornerstone of digital preservation.  To better understand ongoing storage practices of organizations committed to digital preservation, the National Digital Stewardship Alliance conducted a survey of member organizations. This article reports on the findings of the survey. 

Key Findings

The key findings from the survey were:

• 90% of respondents are distributing copies of at least part of their content geographically.
• 88% of respondents are responsible for their content for an indefinite period of time.
• 80% of respondents use some form of fixity checking for their content.
• 75% of respondents report a strong preference to host and control their own technical infrastructure for preservation storage.
• 69% of respondents are considering, or currently participating in, a distributed storage cooperative or system (ex. LOCKSS alliance, MetaArchive, Data-PASS).
• 64% of respondents are planning to make significant technological changes in their preservation storage architecture in the next three years.
• 51% of respondents are considering or already using a cloud storage provider to keep one or more copies of their content.
• 48% of respondents are considering, or currently contracting out, storage services to be managed by another organization or company.

Digital Preservation Matters.