Plan for Technology Advancements for Storing Your Critical Data

Are you storing your vital company records with 20 plus year retention policies to be readable with all the advances in technology?

Recently, a law firm came to us with a banker’s box full of 5” floppy discs and needed the data off these disks. This is not an easy task even for a data conversion company. This law firm admitted that they knew they had this data in their file room, but had forgotten that it was all stored on 5” floppy discs.

All too often we see companies wanting to digitize aged paper files that were stored incorrectly for many years. While they can still be converted to PDF’s, the costs rise significantly because of the poor paper condition.

The lessons to take away here are to be aware of advances in storage devices and to convert this data before it’s too late. If you plan to store any vital paper records for long periods of time, then make sure they are being stored in a climate controlled facility such as Access Records Management. Microfiche and Microfilm can last for 100 plus years if stored correctly.

Questions or comments can be sent to judy@accessrecordsmanagement.net