Importance of storage media

[ShutteringFocus]

I'm getting worried about storing my thousands of photos on CD's and DVD's.

I have negatives from 4 years ago (that's nothing...I know...but keep in mind I have only been alive for 16 years so that is a quarter of my existence)

But will I still have everything on those CD's in 10 years? Do they loose anything?

[JZaun]

Everything will deteriate. Some faster than others depending on original quality. If you are concerned at all burn a fresh CD :D , Maybe now is the time to go to DVD. Multiple back up is always best..

JZ

[CoolToolGuy]

Aside from the media, you should consider the program that will read it. JPEG is the standard today, but who knows what is coming. As time goes on, new standards get created and the old ones fall by the wayside. The photo editing programs may maintain compatibility for a while, but at some point the support may drop.

I don't think JPEG files are at risk, but if you have images in another, less popular format, you should consider making copies in something like JPEG, that will probably be supported for a long time.

[karusel]

Do not, by any means trust a CD or a DVD. I've seen way too many CDRs that began loosing the data layer, it just cracks then tears apart. I would say max 5 years before re-archiving. However, considering the low price of todays hard drives I would recommend to use them for archival storage purposes, the only thing one has to provide in such case is relatively constant temperature, low humidity and no sources of magnetism.

I would not be concerned about file format compatibility, todays programs support many formats that 99% of people don't use. Should such a problem arise some day, you would definetely be able to convert those files to a new format with no problems.

[angrybunny]

Optical Media like CD and DVD deteriorate at varying levels. This is dependent on the environment (hot/cold) the quality of the media and a bit of luck(or bad luck). Magnetic storage like hard drives can suffer from physical failure, virus infections and file corruption. Any one remember the IBM 75XP hard drives???

I backup my photos on a monthly basis on a fresh DVD-R (soon to be 2 per month). I know that this isn't foolproof, but at least it gives me some peace of mind. In the event that one of the disks becomes stale or bad, I have other copies from previous months with the majority of my photos intact.

The fact is, no form of storage is completely safe. If you backup your photos to multiple formats and locations, you have a better chance of keeping them safe. If you become truly paranoid, you can also look into offsite data storage...but that gets pretty expensive.

[daaaveman]

Be sure and keep a copy of your DVD/CD-R's off-site or atleast in a fire safe. I have a good friend with a large safe so I keep extra copies of all my disks there. I don't want a fire to cause me to lose the thousands of images I've worked so hard on.

[PacAce]

While you're on the topic of backups, I just wanted to add one more very important point. Don't forget to check your backup copies to make sure they're good. There's nothing more frustrating than finding out when you really need it that the backup copy you have is no good and can't be read. I've already had it happen to me once and had to burn another backup CD.

[evilenglishman]

i bought a 160gb hard disk which i plug in once every three months to dump newer photos on then i take it out and store it at my sisters house, in a room tempaerature environment. When its full i might make a duplicate of it.

If you work out the price of a good DVD recorder and good media, its probably cheaper to buy a decent hard disk and do it that way.