from Hacker News

Backup Your Data to Paper

by kaptain on 10/3/20, 4:03 AM with 16 comments

• by brittohalloran on 10/3/20, 1:44 PM

  Back of the envelope on storage capacity: - Looks like about 200x200 px grid - 200x200 = 40,000 total possible bits - Assume only 75% of these are available for data due to QR structure and redundancy features - Leaves about 30,000 bits or 3-4 kb capacity in that one image - Comes out to about 5 reams of paper per mb of data storage

  This would be a better "ping pong balls on a plane" interview question for comp sci candidates.

• by voxadam on 10/3/20, 10:37 AM

  While I'm neither an expert in data backup or an archivist I'm willing to guess that it would highly recommended that anyone using a method such as this to use high quality acid-free archival grade paper to avoid the inevitable ink fade that occurs with lower quality paper types.

• by ChickeNES on 10/3/20, 4:49 PM

  I don't remember the name, but I'm pretty sure I saw something like this about twenty years ago, any HNers know what I'm talking about?

• by blackrock on 10/3/20, 10:01 AM

  I had this exact idea a few years ago.

  It was a neat idea, to offline your data to analog format. But, it would require a lot of paper printouts to back up your data.

  The paper printout might actually last longer than CDROMs.

  A more interesting idea, would be to encrypt your data, and back it up to the cloud. Then, the printout is just the password-protected key to re-download the data, and decrypt it.

• by kderbyma on 10/4/20, 8:52 PM

  No we just need to Microfilm it - --- also fork it into an MJPEG exporter.