I'v just bought a new digital camera and I have been thinking about how I'm going to store my pictures. The Problem is that I want to still be able to look at these photos in 20 or 30 years. This is not a problem with film photos because I can just put them in a box and put the box in storage, but with digital photos, I'm not sure what sort of long term storage solutions exist. Up to now, I'v just kept a backup on an external hard drive. But hard drives can fail, cd's can get scratched and apperently the ink dosnt last reliably, and I cant think of any other storage mediums that will last and probably will not go obsolite. How do people here backup their files? What would you sugest I use to keep my files for posterity?
The last I heard, CDs have about a 15year life span-under ideal conditions. I would think that keeping them on an external HDD for back up+backing them up to CD should cover you pretty well. That way you have 3 copies of the pictures: The HDD in your computer-the ones you have access to, the external HDD that you only use for backup and recovery, and the CDs. Add to that a premium online service to store them and that is 4 copies, not to mention that the online service most likely has a RAID array and back ups too.
Burn them to a couple of different CD's (By some good quality premium CD's, I.E. not 5p each jobbies) burn them then seal them in the CD case so they don't get scratched?
It's the organic substrate that degrades though. Silver, printed disks that arent burnt like CDRs last a lot longer. Probably a harddisk will last the longest actually, providing you can still plug it into a computer in 20 years. Or surely a usb stick? Do solid state devises degrade?
If you keep CD's away from light, they should last your lifetime. My first ever CD I bought almost 20 years ago is still perfect
But there's a big difference between CDs and CD-Rs - CD-Rs degrade sooner than CDs IIRC... edit: bindi made this point just before your post.... Have you thought of online storage? Might be difficult choosing who's still gonna be around in 10 years though... even big companies go belly-up occasionally. (And there may be a monthly cost involved if it's large quantities of data)
Save your Pictures untill you have a big bunch. Burn them on a quality DVD. Print out list with pictures. Put it in a good box. That keeps light out. (DVD box, for example). Store those in a safe place. Save the pictures on your hard disk for use.. Only use the dvd's if you lost data. If you wanna be extra safe you can put the dvd's in a box at the bank. Or at the digital-safe thingy.. (cant remember the name.. its a place somewhere, and they store all hard drives etc there.. bombproof) L
I'll probably burn them onto serveral dvd-r's and re-organize them every few years. I'll probably keep a duplicate on an external hard drive too. Also, how likely would it be that I could still plug my usb 2.0 hard drive into my computer in 10 years. I can probably print them out too but the quality would not be nearly as good if I need to make a duplicate.
I thought companies who do photo processing use a different printing technique than home inkjets which means they should last as long as photographs. Is that not the case?
I'm more worried about re-producing them after. With film, you can make unlimited copies from the negatives but with digital, the original is on the computer and any printing out and copying would decrease quality. I probably will still get a copy of them printed out. I found a local store that will print out the photos for the same price as making prints from negatives and they are much better quality then I can print out at home.
Very likely. USB has been on the market for almost 10 years now, and I bet motherboard-manufacturers will include them on motherboards for the next 10 years as well (albeit a newer and improved version perhaps, but at least it's gonna be backwards compatible). Worst case scenario is that you're going to have to buy an adapter. But come on, look at how today there are still motherboards that include an RS232 (COM) port, while obviously it's all but extinct.
Kodak sells CD-Rs that are designed for photo backups. They have the silver and gold in it like mentioned before.
