Jumpster Jiver wrote:

snip
I'm not suggesting that we go back to the last century and store
everything on paper or back to the stone age...
I'm suggesting that we find a way to store our data in a way that can
last hundreds to thousands of years, while making it repairable and
retrievable, and able to be understood by the equipment we will have a
century from now.

Perhaps take a lesson from Voyager; encode baseband data by engraving
spiraling grooves onto a noble-metal disc (phonograph record). The
recordings attached to the spacecraft are intended to endure the
journey between stars :-) Closer to home and seriously, home recordings
made on disc machines from the 1930's are often as good now as when
originally made; consider this technology using existing equipment
and add robust error correcting coding. Also, some photographic films
have good longevity; consider microfiche printouts for data archiving.

In terms of supporting technology, if personnel are available throughout
the archiving period, a periodic refresh of data onto contemporary
media is in order using updated equipment at each cycle. If this is
not possible, one of the archiving methods described above would require
only basic technology to reconstruct the data by future societies.

Regards,

Michael