saving digital pictures to last long

[mattisj]

Does anybody know which is the best media to save digital photos so that they would last as long as possible? CD, DVD...?

I´ve read that cd:s will last from 2-10 years. Both are absolutely too short times.

I know that one should handle dvd:s and cd:s carefully and not scratch them and so on and so on... So I have done with my diapositives earlier so this is not the question, but isn`t there really any useful method to save our pictures to last more than just some years...

Taking copies from every cd:s every 2 years doesn`t sound sensible to me.

matti

[lucasdigital]

Mainstream storage media isn't designed for long term archiving. I believe there are some specialist solutions, they are not economical for regular folk (lots of gold involved).

Take heart that technology continues at such a breakneck pace that new vastly supperior storage solutions will be here long before your CDs bite the dust. So the idea of creating a long-life format has never gained much interest from manufacturers.

Remember - The quoted lifetime is not fixed, its an estimate. I have floppy disks from 1993 that still function. The later versions of the CD should be more reliable still, so long as they were stored appropriately.

[gobigorgohome]

I believe that Microsoft has said, that a burned cdr will last 25 years. They have also said, that cdrw and dvd has a short life span.
I hope that helps.

[Radtech1]

Two Words: HARD DRIVES

I have an external (usb) hard drive enclosure (Mfr: MaPower) and I put hard drives in it. With hard drive prices down in the $1.00 per gig range, and near infinty life span that is the safest/most cost effective solution that I know of.

PLUS, with that kind of space, I don't have to worry about "which CD (DVD) that picture is on". My latest drive is 160 gig. That is big enough for
26 THOUSAND pictures in RAW format. 500 shots a week for a year to fill it.

Rad

[Syldorian]

If/when I get some money saved up, my plan is to get a RAID server going. Redundant storage on active hard drives is the only current way I know of to guarantee you won't lose data. And by redundant I also mean off-site storage. Which can probably get expensive, but I haven't looked into it that much. I just don't trust CDs anymore....had too many go bad on me. I'm not sure if there'll ever be any kind of static storage that will really beat hard drives (or whatever replaces them...active storage that constantly checks for data corruption, at any rate).
Sorry if that didn't contribute much. I've been thinking about this some recently, though, so I figured I'd share my thoughts.

[aam1234]

How about tapes. Heard they are more reliable than HD's.

[Jon]

CD-R for archives. Hard drives, in spite of their capacity, suffer from two weaknesses.
1) They rely on a (readily reversible) magnetic field
2) They're always on when they're connected; they have their own moving parts to go wrong.

Bsides - you ever tried keeping a hard drive in an off-site fireproof storage facility?

For reliable archiving, you're better off using media with as few moving parts to fail as possible. And when you're buying the media, get the good stuff. The 300 CDs for $10 spindles won't last as well as, say, Taiyo Yuden media. The same with tapes. Get the good ones - they're less prone to flaking of the oxide coating.

[eastcoast909]

The really major problem that we will have for extremely long term data storage and recovery will not be the type of media that it is stored on but rather will you be able to access it when you want to 25 or 30 years from now.

Remember the large (8" floppy discs ?) could you retreive data from them now? What computer would you use and what drive to run them on? How many machines now have a 3.5" floppy, let alone a 5 1/4".

Will your ide/cd/cdrw/dvd drive be able to interface to a system then. The way that technology is moving forward I doubt that they will, no manufacturer will be building in backwards compatibility that much.

Perhaps the solution lies in the internet storage, where it is refreshed constantly on raid systems.

I know that I don't have the solution.

[Jon]

The only solution for format is to progressively move forward to the new media types. There's, we're seeing, a backwards compatibility in optical media, with even the new blue DVD formats being able to read CDs. Tapes have a greater problem with this backward compatibility. The only real answer is to, as soon as the format for media B stabilizes, move your archives from media A to that. Then you're ready even if media C drops support for media A, you're set. If C keeps support for A, you have belt and suspenders. And so on.

[MazerRakhm]

If/when I get some money saved up, my plan is to get a RAID server going. Redundant storage on active hard drives is the only current way I know of to guarantee you won't lose data. And by redundant I also mean off-site storage. Which can probably get expensive, but I haven't looked into it that much. I just don't trust CDs anymore....had too many go bad on me. I'm not sure if there'll ever be any kind of static storage that will really beat hard drives (or whatever replaces them...active storage that constantly checks for data corruption, at any rate).
Sorry if that didn't contribute much. I've been thinking about this some recently, though, so I figured I'd share my thoughts.


I apologize in advance for what will probably be a long post, but being rather new to photography I’ve actually found something I can give a coherent response to.

I'm currently in the IT field as a system admin so I deal a lot with storage and a RAID system is probably the best way to go about it, but all systems have their drawbacks.

CD/DVD - This is the cheapest, and my current archival method. I plan (It's one of those 'round to it's that I never get to...) to make 2 copies of everything and keep them in seperate folders. At about $1.00 a disk, and $100.00 for a writable drive it is the cheapest method to go with. The trick here is to get good CD stock that doesn’t chip or flake easily, and then read every disk you write before you mark it successful. Just because your CD writing program says it’s ok, doesn’t mean it is.

Tape - This is what most of the IT industry runs it’s backups on (Even with raid or protected drives, or when mirrored to a backup system.) but this has the most drawbacks:
-Tape drives are expensive.
-Tape drive media is also expensive.
-Hard drives are increasing in size exponentially, while tape media is not. Therefore it may take multiple tapes to back up a full drive.
-Tapes are subject to just as much failure as home CD/DVD burners. Most people don’t know this because not many have a tape drive and backup.

Raid – (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks – Told you I was a geek!) This technology has come a very long way in the past several years; especially with the advent of being able to use IDE drives. Quite a few manufacturers of PC motherboards now build simple raid solutions into their motherboards which when set up will allow you to mirror 2 or more drives so that if one fails the others will take over and you do not loose your data. Now that IDE hard drives are becoming larger for less money, (I recently picked up a 280Gig drive for $119.00), mirroring them on your home system is a much more viable solution. This does not mean it is foolproof however, you can still have a catastrophe that could ruin multiple drives on your system at once, but this would be rare. (I hope!)

Off Site Storage – Every Company uses this to some extent. A technology off site storage place can be expensive, but not always worth it! If you are just looking for some place to archive your data either on CD/Tape/Back up hard Drive you could take these items to any temperature controlled storage place or even safety deposit box that you already have and your items would be almost as safe.

[blinking8s]

i have that external sony DVD-RW with the double laser stuff, it does archival burning, takes a while...i cant really explain it, but it doubles the life and takes better to dust and scratches or something...the guys at work knew all about it

[CyberDyneSystems]

Tape is just as susceptible to the rigos of the environment as a hard drive.. and in fact less stable under adverse conditions than CD-R (ie magnetism and or bad weather :) )

I like multiple/redundant hard drives for "active/online" storage... but archiving to DVD or CD is a must as well.

2 years for CD-R? I just can't imagine it being that bad. The fist CD i ever burned on a 2X SCSI drive that cost $600.00 bucks is still going strong.. and it even has a big sticky lable glued to it.

And if course as media storage progresses.. we will need to migrat or archives to the latest and greatest.

In 5 years of they have a new disk that will hold 20 GB per disk and last 25years.. you'll simply copy all your CD-Rs to a few of these new fangled media.

[MazerRakhm]

2 years for CD-R? I just can't imagine it being that bad. The fist CD i ever burned on a 2X SCSI drive that cost $600.00 bucks is still going strong.. and it even has a big sticky lable glued to it.

I had one of those first 2x SCSI drives from 5(?) years ago, and recently had to go back to a bunch of archived CD's that I made then. I didn't have any problems, especially if they are kept in some sort of binder pages, or at least in a jewel case and not thrown on the top of the desk (Like I normally do).

I typically don't see problems with CD's unless I buy the extremely cheap CD's. I've noticed the most problems when the CD's don't have some sort of "branding" or label on the top.

[photoguynorth]

RAID (and it's nice to know someone else knows it's INEXPENSIVE) is a poor solution for archiving. There are lots of ways to make all the stored data go away - the controller can fail, you can accidentally delete or overwrite files, viruses can infect the disks, the OS could burp - you get the picture. RAID, when used with a redundant backup plan is fine - it is certainly more convenient to replace a failed disk in a RAID array than restore backups, but don't just rely on that.
I have CR-Rs burned years ago, and I have seen failures, but only with cheap media. Quality, brand name media last a lot longer. I've also had multiple hard drive failures. However, media failures do happen, so I always burn 3 copies - 2 for me and one to store offsite.
As far as the argument that compatibility will be a problem, there will be lots of overlap before it becomes a problem. Comparing proprietary systems with 8" floppy disks (yes I've even used them!) with the millions of standards based CD media and drives that exist now is a bit of a stretch. I still have a working 5.25" floppy drive that will fit in my current system, not that I have anything left on floppies.

[mattisj]

Hi,

I apologize in advance for what will probably be a long post,

That`s exactly what I was hoping to get. Long and exact informing answer. Thanks for that and others too.

Though all that doesn`t leave me maybe no other possibility than take copies - but maybe little more stresslessly.

matti