Archiving

[troonly]

My 40G hard drive is groaning under the strain of a raft of daily photos, and I'd like to archive. But 've heard horror stroies about both CD and DVD. Anyone any thoughts/experience/recommendations please.


Ian

[gpaai]

I'm a bad person when it comes to storage. I have CD's lying around everywhere. And when I get up to about 20 gigs on my PC I burn more. I really need to spend a weekend sorting things out, though I doubt that would be enough time...

[floradoragirl]

My hard drive is only a measly 20Gb so I've been burning to cd for a while, which is a pain. Longevity is a problem with all digital material so you should make sure you store your cd's properly (ie in archival quality materials and in cool temperatures). Check them periodically to make sure that the images are not degrading. Every few years it might be worth making duplicate copies, although I have to say, it's unlikely I'll be doing that myself.

I just bought myself a 250Gb external hard drive, which is a temporary fix. But also, with the pressure of PAD, I'm just going to have to be more ruthless with what I keep.

[robertwhite]

CDs and DVDs are probally the most econical and you are only limited by the number of discs but yes they can be a pain and oh that filling system external hard drives are fine but you are limited by space eventually they will fill up as for digital photo albums they seem very expensive at the end of the day its all down to what you can afford personally I store mine on CDs and keep them in a storage box in a spare cupboard providing you check them periodicly it should be fine

[earthling]

The topic was recently in the Digital Camera Forum, so see also:http://forum.pbase.com/viewtopic.php?t=9958&highlight=

[ckimmerle]

CD-R's and DVD-R's are both good choices as long as you don't reach for the cheap versions. Stick with silver or gold reflective layers - I prefer the latter - since they use a newer active layer called phthalocyanine (I had to look up the spelling).

Always double archive, though, as there are never any guarantees.

Chuck

[davidclunas]

Ideally DAT tape, but the hardware is expensive. Good quality CD's and DVD's can be used and will probably give you 10 - 15 years if kept correctly.

Always back down 2 copies, one for use and one never to be used unless you have damaged the other one. This copy should ideally be kept off site. Even if you use a second hard disk to store your work on I would still advocate backing down to other media.

At this point you will probably want to look at how you manage the archive if you are not already using some form of image browsing/archiving software.