What's better works for backup HDD or CF/SD cards

Hello ladies and gents !
I’m thinking to make a kind of ALL BACKUP of my the most important pictures. JPG’s and RAW files from last 5 years.
No worries I do have everything backedup already, I have actually few backups of the most important pictures and RAWs. However I’m thinking to make one big backup of the important stuff that I want to save forever.
What will be better and offers “safer” and longer shelf life ? HDD like WD Passport or maybe CF Cards ? or SD Cards ?
Money are not the factor I know that cheaper would be use HDD but if CF or SD cards can give me longer shelf life and I’ll be sure that my pictures will not disappear , then I can take CF or SD cards even if this is much expensive option. I don’ t have crazy amount of data maybe 500gb maybe…
I just want to make sure that my pictures will not disappear I may need then in 5, 10 or maybe 20 years. I know that technology will change but… we still can play cassette tapes right thx for your help !

Keep your pictures on your computer's hard drive and back that up to a USB hard drive. In addition to being cheaper, hard drives hold more so you won't have to shuffle media. I also recommend backing up to a service like Crashplan. Then you have three copies in two locations.

yep u definitely know what I asked for....

I keep one extra internal backup and one external backup. Doesn't matter the media, but rotating drives every couple of years is probably the easiest and cheapest. Get a new (probably bigger) drive for main computer, then current drive becomes backup drive and oldest drive gets tossed.

It all depends on how large your dataset is. If it's 50GB or less then I'd keep copies on my PC hard drive (where it will get backed up to three different locations as part of the normal backup process). I'd also put a copy onto one or two USB thumb drives and I'd investigate putting some of it (probably just the jpegs) in the cloud - mainly for the ability to access it anywhere.

upload them to your own website for storage. this has nothing to do with publishing them on the website for public view.

Well I know you said about CF/SD cards, but Kingston just came out with a 512GB/1TB USB 3.0 flash drive. But the price for the 512GB is $1750! OUCH! Saw it on Engadget.

tkbslc wrote in post #15460123
I keep one extra internal backup and one external backup. Doesn't matter the media, but rotating drives every couple of years is probably the easiest and cheapest. Get a new (probably bigger) drive for main computer, then current drive becomes backup drive and oldest drive gets tossed.

Thats actually good idea... I didn't think that way. I may just buy another external drive and back everything up. The I can rotate the drive after 2 years or so.

My question is: Can data disappear or something can happen to the external drive WD My Passport type if it's not used, drive will be just wrapped in bubble wrap and kept in the safe??

Or if safer will be to keep data on CF/SD Cards ? Can data disappear from CF/SD cards if I'm not using them ??

I have 300gb data to backup, Internet backup services are not an option. It's not a big deal to buy 10 32gd cards, I just want to make sure my stuff is safe

rypson wrote in post #15460950
I have 300gb data to backup, Internet backup services are not an option. It's not a big deal to buy 10 32gd cards, I just want to make sure my stuff is safe

Actually, you'd be talking about 20 cards. Having just one backup isn't a sensible solution.

Wth 300GB your best bet is three 500GB hard drives. One attached to your computer, one stored somewhere in the house and the third stored off-site (I have a friend keep it in the fire-safe at her office).

If the data that requires backing up changes over time then you rotate the drives. The one attached to the computer get updated on-the-fly or once per day. Every week (month, depending on how much fresh data there is) you swap that drive for the one elsewhere in the house. Every month (6 months, depending...) you swap it for the off-site drive.

MCAsan wrote in post #15460507
upload them to your own website for storage. this has nothing to do with publishing them on the website for public view.

That works with reduced size or heavily compressed JPEG versions. But most people don't have access to hundreds or thousands of gigabytes of web space.

Doing multiple hard-drive backups with off-site storage (internet, office, in-laws, etc.) is the way to go as Hollis_f described.

Sounds like you're also thinking about archiving as well? Not necessarily the same thing as backup.

hollis_f wrote in post #15461002
Actually, you'd be talking about 20 cards. Having just one backup isn't a sensible solution.

Given his response to my post, I get the impression he wants to know some reliable media onto which he can place his data for long term storage. Tip: There's no such thing. He keeps using the word "backup", yet keeps describing something that's not a backup.

One copy of anything isn't a backup. Its data loss waiting to happen.

Who cares if a backup medium can be read in 20 years? It only needs to function from the last backup until the time it needs to be restored, which if backups are done regularly, should only be a very short amount of time.

rypson wrote in post #15460950
I have 300gb data to backup, Internet backup services are not an option.

Then how do I have 450GB on a service?

mike_d wrote in post #15461217
Who cares if a backup medium can be read in 20 years?

Only an archivist, and I have it on good authority that they spend a lot of time migrating data onto newer formats before the existing ones disappear.

rypson wrote in post #15459100
...What ...offers... longer shelf life ? HDD like WD Passport or maybe CF Cards ? or SD Cards ? ...

Responding to this very narrow snip from your posting.

Flash memory (whether on a USB "drive", on an SSD, on a CF card, or on a SD card) should not be relied on for archival (long shelf life) storage.

If you just go looking for flash memory specs and reliability studies, most will focus on the number of write/erase cycles the memory can go through before it starts to fail. This, of course, is irrelevant if your question is about archival storage, since you will be writing once and never erasing (or at least, having very low numbers of write/erase cycles).

Flash memory works by holding a charge in each memory "cell". What testing has been done on archival storage using this technology suggests it can hold the data for only 10 years (or less), beyond which the charge begins to degrade, which means it becomes increasingly unlikely you'll be able to read it all back.

So, besides being expensive, flash memory is just not the best choice for archival storage.