Storing your photos for years to come...

[Braveheart]

With all kinds of different ways to store your photos, what's the best and most reliable way to ensure your photos outlive you? Printing the photos excluded.

Some people say burning everything on CDR's, but I heard some CDR's could get ruined after as short as 10-15 years! now this is NOT GOOD, especially if the photos you have on a disc are supposed to be a lifetime memory which you intend to show to your grandchildren :)

So, any suggestions on how to store pictures for life time.

[dn7elson]

Multiple copies of CD-R backups would add to the life as the future deterioration of the disks would likely not occur at the same place on each.

A more permanent solution would be to copy your CDs to new ones every 10-15 years so that you never got to a point where they were excessively old.

Another solution would be to use a longer duration media, such as Magneto Optical (MO) where the disk life is in the 30-40 year range with virtually unlimited rewrites. I would not recommend pressing the rewrite aspect although the specs allow it.

I think that in any case, the storage technology will have passed current storage devices and rendered them obsolete. This will certainly be the case if you look out 30-40 years or more. Your solution at that time will be to copy your archives from current media to "future media" while there is still backward compatibility.

[mjmcgarry]

I think that in any case, the storage technology will have passed current storage devices and rendered them obsolete. This will certainly be the case if you look out 30-40 years or more. Your solution at that time will be to copy your archives from current media to "future media" while there is still backward compatibility.

I agree. Store them on CDRs now and in 10 years re-evaluate your storage solutions. My best guess will be a second generation DVD-R where you may put your 50 CDs onto a single storage device.

[Braveheart]

Good points. Considering how cheap CDR's are, it's easy to copy them after a few years, that way you always have your pictures on "new" discs.

From what I know, it doesnt matter how many times you copy them, the pictures will still stay the same, no loss in quality right?

[mjmcgarry]

From what I know, it doesnt matter how many times you copy them, the pictures will still stay the same, no loss in quality right?

That is true. All you are copying are files. As far as the computer is concerened, they are no different than Microsoft Word documents. The data is not modified when you copy files, unless they are being infected with a computer virus. Still, that would not affect the quality of the picture.

This is not the same as dubbing a cassette tape of your favorite music or making a photocopy.

[dn7elson]

Braveheart wrote:
From what I know, it doesnt matter how many times you copy them, the pictures will still stay the same, no loss in quality right?

Right. Digital is digital....just 1's and 0's. You can get file corruption, media damage, etc. But a digital file copied (and verified if desired after copying) should give you the identical image after say 100 copies as it did from the original. This is unlike the degrading that occurs with multiple generations of electrostatic copies ("Xerox copies" )

[Chupacabra]

If you're really serious about archiving your photos, and also would like quick access to them, buy a good, large internal or external hard drive and also back up your photos to cd. Make sure the hard drive isn't your primary drive, storage only. I archive to an 80GB firewire drive and back up all my best photos to CD as well.

[dn7elson]

I look at "archiving" as the same as putting into long term storage. You may not need it again for a while, but want it in acceptable condition when you do. You also want it to last intact for an extended period of time.

Most hard drives will not provide long term storage of the type required. When your CD-ROM dies, you just buy a new one and continue to use your archive media.

When your HD dies (as it inevitably will) unless you have backed it up to another, non volatile media, you will be out of luck. Sure, you can go to a HD recovery company and spend a handful of money to restore and backup, but why endure the risk and potential cost of lost or difficult to retreive data?

For frequent, short term storage, what you propose is ideal. For long term it is not.