Translations:Maintenance: Preservation, Development and Migrations/45/en

Deciding to migrate data, software, or storage media should be planned and scheduled to the greatest extent possible. It should also not be made quickly. New, groundbreaking software or hardware solutions might be tempting as a great way to improve our archive’s services. Still, we should be wary of untested solutions—and bear in mind that any migration is not a simple process, as it requires time and resources and inevitably brings its share of risks. Data can be changed, damaged, or lost even in a simple transfer, and more so in a complex format or software migration. However, if we hesitate for too long, the software might become obsolete, making migration much more difficult.