Long storage of CF Cards?

[HOCKEYSTOP]

CF cards are becoming less and less expensive as time goes on. Is there any problem with keeping your photos on the CF Card and storing them in a safe rather than putting them onto the external hard drive and copying to a CD?
This is my system now, I take photos then load them to the computer then transfer to the external hard drive, then I copy all photos to a CD and store the CD's in my fire safe. What I would like to do is keep all the photos on the CF cards after I load them to the hard drive and just store the CF cards in my safe. The photos I would be saving would be the important ones like vacations and family events, times when I am taking a LOT of photos. Snapshots and misc photos I would just take the chance with the external hard drive. Any thoughts? I hope this makes sense.

[sapearl]

Interesting concept - I guess the real question is how long an image can remain intact/uncorrupted on a CF card, as opposed to a hard drive vs. burned DVD vs. some other sort of media.

Granted HD's can crash after a few years - so far I just copy the files to bigger cheaper drives - and DVD's don't seem to last as long as the original marketting led one to believe. What you're really asking is what's the best way to store your best images, and in a way that would allow them to be easily and conveniently retrieved.

If I create anything I consider to be that special or appreciated, I mat and frame it :D. Of course I realize that's not practical for large numbers of pictures. - Stu

[hairy_moth]

One word of caution about using a safe -- they get moldy!

I bought a safe some years ago (okay it was for Y2K) and stored papers and cash in it. I didn't open it for over a month and when I did everything was REALLY moldy. (I got really dirty looks from the bank teller when I deposited a stack of moldy 20s.

So, if you are planning on purchasing a safe, get one with an anti mold feature or plan on opening it every few days.

[sapearl]

He should be OK with a safe as long as it is in a relatively dry climate controlled environment. Perhaps your bills were a little damp and you closed your safe up on a humid day, thereby trapping moisture long enough to result in mildew?

One word of caution about using a safe -- they get moldy!

I bought a safe some years ago (okay it was for Y2K) and stored papers and cash in it. I didn't open it for over a month and when I did everything was REALLY moldy. (I got really dirty looks from the bank teller when I deposited a stack of moldy 20s.

So, if you are planning on purchasing a safe, get one with an anti mold feature or plan on opening it every few days.

[EnglishBob]

One word of caution about using a safe -- they get moldy!

Silica packs from camera purchases are useful for this.


I would consider buying USB flash drives rather than using CF cards, roughly same price range these days.

[Mark1]

I know of at least 1 photographer who only used CF cards once. He does not erase them, they get put in an envelope and is stored with the paperwork for the customer/job. He just bills the cards to the client and keeps them as secondary backup.

[HOCKEYSTOP]

One word of caution about using a safe -- they get moldy!

I bought a safe some years ago (okay it was for Y2K) and stored papers and cash in it. I didn't open it for over a month and when I did everything was REALLY moldy. (I got really dirty looks from the bank teller when I deposited a stack of moldy 20s.

So, if you are planning on purchasing a safe, get one with an anti mold feature or plan on opening it every few days.


No worries about mold here. I have a LARGE fire rated gun safe with a dehumidifier.

[LowriderS10]

I know of at least 1 photographer who only used CF cards once. He does not erase them, they get put in an envelope and is stored with the paperwork for the customer/job. He just bills the cards to the client and keeps them as secondary backup.

that's a pretty good idea

[sapearl]

So is he postprocessing the necessary images and them writing them back to the CF cards, so he has the original RAW and/or JPG's plus the finished work?

I know of at least 1 photographer who only used CF cards once. He does not erase them, they get put in an envelope and is stored with the paperwork for the customer/job. He just bills the cards to the client and keeps them as secondary backup.

[Mark1]

He is importing as the rest of us are. Edits and the imported CR2's go into the primary backup.The "origionals" are all that remain on the card... I dont think the edits make thier way back to the card. But Im not 100% sure.

[HOCKEYSTOP]

next question then, How many RAW files can a 1 gig and 2 gig CF hold? I may look into getting a bunch of them to start doing this.

[FlyingPhotog]

next question then, How many RAW files can a 1 gig and 2 gig CF hold? I may look into getting a bunch of them to start doing this.

That will obviously depend on the size of the image files which in turn will depend on image complexity and ISO (Higher ISO = Larger Files)

Filing cards per client isn't all that crazy. In video production, we bill clients for tape stock used so if you can find a way to invoice it, why not?

[sapearl]

Well, with my 5D doing wedding work I'd be able to get 150 12-13MB RAW files on a 2GB CF card. I moved up to 4GB and get about twice that...... depending on a variety of factors as Jay astutely pointed out :D.

next question then, How many RAW files can a 1 gig and 2 gig CF hold? I may look into getting a bunch of them to start doing this.

[tim]

They're still a pretty expensive way to archive images, especially since long term reliability probably isn't well known. At least keep the images somewhere else too, a hard drive for example.

[photojournalista]

I've read an article that Regular Harddisk will outlast a SSHD (solid state HD). HD uses magnetic data, SSHD uses electronic data that will drift away with time. SSHD uses the same concept of storing data as the memory cards, NVRAMs.

[hollis_f]

I've read an article that Regular Harddisk will outlast a SSHD (solid state HD). HD uses magnetic data, SSHD uses electronic data that will drift away with time. SSHD uses the same concept of storing data as the memory cards, NVRAMs.

Sounds like you read an article written by somebody who doesn't know what they're talking about. Solid state memory is a lot more reliable than magnetic. Besides, on a magnetic disk it's not so much the data integrity that fails - it's the mechanics.

[photojournalista]

Sounds like you read an article written by somebody who doesn't know what they're talking about. Solid state memory is a lot more reliable than magnetic. Besides, on a magnetic disk it's not so much the data integrity that fails - it's the mechanics.

I don't know anything about memory or HD engineering. Just read it here...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10276726-64.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

Ed Doller, the chief technical officer of Numonyx, a flash memory chip maker ...

Doller spoke about an epiphany he had after booting up a 20-year-old IBM AT. "I fired that thing up and it actually booted from the hard drive. If that same computer had been built with a solid-state drive, I can almost guarantee you that would not have worked. It would have lost its information over that period of time," Doller said.

[hollis_f]

I don't know anything about memory or HD engineering. Just read it here...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10276726-64.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

Ed Doller, the chief technical officer of Numonyx, a flash memory chip maker ...

Doller spoke about an epiphany he had after booting up a 20-year-old IBM AT. "I fired that thing up and it actually booted from the hard drive. If that same computer had been built with a solid-state drive, I can almost guarantee you that would not have worked. It would have lost its information over that period of time," Doller said.

And later in the article -

What Numonyx's solution? Phase change memory. Last week, Samsung and Numonyx announced they are jointly developing market specifications for phase change memory (PCM) products. Phase change memory can read and write data very quickly at lower power than conventional NOR and NAND flash memory, and single bits can be changed to either 1 or 0 without the need to first erase an entire block of cells--a shortcoming of flash

Ah, the guy saying that current SSDs will fail just happens to be developing an alternative. So he's got no vested interest then.


Oh, and HDD technology has changed over the last 20 years. Modern drives have much higher capacities with higher data densities - which make long-term retention of the magnetic fields much less likely.

[The Moose]

CF's are still way too expensive to use for long term storage compared to an external HDD. It's not worth it, for mine.

[Jon]

I don't know anything about memory or HD engineering. Just read it here...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10276726-64.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

Ed Doller, the chief technical officer of Numonyx, a flash memory chip maker ...

Doller spoke about an epiphany he had after booting up a 20-year-old IBM AT. "I fired that thing up and it actually booted from the hard drive. If that same computer had been built with a solid-state drive, I can almost guarantee you that would not have worked. It would have lost its information over that period of time," Doller said.
Anyone ask him if he's tried booting from 20-year-old floppies? And then there's the question of drive interface compatibilities. I can almost guarantee you that you wouldn't be able to get an MFM or RSS hard disk controller (prevailing technologies of the time) that could be used in a modern computer. And soon PATA will have gone the same way. Which means your external drives will run into the same problem. Whatever technology you go to, figure on replacing the media at least every 5 years, both to stay technologically "current" and to guard against age-related media failures. And consider the convenience factor of scanning a single large drive (whether SSD or magnetic) vs. a plethora of cards unless you've developed a robust "paper-based" filing system.

[SwiftFootTim]

There is a lifespan on flash memory. Google searches will give you the answers for your specific cards but Kingston specs their's out at 10 years I believe.

7 years is popping into my head from somewhere. Even though it says solid state, that doesn't mean that it's etched into anything. Flash memory can be overwritten as well and this usually just means a positive or negative put on the medium. I would recommend against flash memory long term storage in favor of CD's or hard drives. Cd's I believe have a life expectancy of 20 years or so while hard drives have the benefit of getting incrementally cheaper over time. Just fill up those hard drives!

[hania]

There is a lifespan on flash memory. Google searches will give you the answers for your specific cards but Kingston specs their's out at 10 years I believe.

7 years is popping into my head from somewhere. Even though it says solid state, that doesn't mean that it's etched into anything. Flash memory can be overwritten as well and this usually just means a positive or negative put on the medium. I would recommend against flash memory long term storage in favor of CD's or hard drives. Cd's I believe have a life expectancy of 20 years or so while hard drives have the benefit of getting incrementally cheaper over time. Just fill up those hard drives!

As long as the hard drive doesn't fail and one day you look at it and it says " no items" ....... as just happened to me

[RDKirk]

As long as the hard drive doesn't fail and one day you look at it and it says " no items" ....... as just happened to me

That's why you keep more than one copy, which is currently easier and/or cheaper to do with a hard drive than any other medium.