Digital Photos - long term storage concerns

[koffiejunkie]

As I've watched my personal photo collection grow over the last two years, something started bothering me. How future proof is storing images on a hard disc/flash card/CD/DVD?

Hard discs fail. Flash cards fail. CD/DVD fail despite their theoretical 100 year lifespan. OK, so we use multiple backups on different medial. But how sustainable is this? Cameras are making bigger images all the time. What do we do when our collections reach a TB and over?

An almost bigger concern for me is the format itself. Companies like changing formats, and discontinuing support for their old formats. And they're obtaining patents for increasingly ridiculous things leaving us at their mercy for certain things. In 30 years time, what format will our cameras take pictures in? Will we have software that can view the stuff that's 30 years old?

 

[bwana]

Who's to say we wont just transfer existing data to the latest and greatest format? I doubt the current ones will simply disappear overnight.

As for formats - well pretty much the same thing. Considering how wide spread their use is, dont you think it will be a while before jpg or tiff are indecipherable?

 

[adsl3g]

Use film...

 

[bwana]

Use film...

and all our music on a record while we're at it?

Film has its own special considerations when it comes to storage too right?

 

[koffiejunkie]

Well, before I came here I finally threw away my old 80mb (yes MegaByte) hard drive, and it still had some pictures - mostly the girl/car pics we exchanged on floppies as teenagers. There a handful that I couldn't open. Can't remember the extentions now, but it does happen.

I guess what bothers me is that the formats we use only exist as a function of certain equipment. It's not something tangible any more.

 

[koffiejunkie]

and all our music on a record while we're at it?

Hey don't diss records. Digital (at least in the consumer space) still hasn't surpassed analog in terms of sound reproduction.

If you don't believe me find a recording of something on both CD and LP and compare them. Preferrably Jazz or something orchestral that use more of the audible sound spectrum. You'll be amazed.

 

[Nuro]

Here is what I have done to digital media I want to store long term:

Have your main working hard drive, and mirror this to another one in a hdd enclosure. Lock this enclosure away somewhere and mirror about once a week. Now mirror the same data to a secondary pc daily (over the network if you can) . Once a year buy a 50 dvd spindle, and back it up there as well. Overkill? perhaps, but i have never lost data in 5 years. Hard drives are becoming cheaper by the month. I'm working with about 120 gigs of data at the moment (not quite the TB you mentioned)

BTW, I find when dvd's are kept dark and cool, they actually last quite well. Leave them in jewel cases on your desk, and they deteriorate faster. On the other hand, I have had 3 hard drive crashes in 3 years, but never two hard drives at the same time. Use differential mirroring software, which saves time and hard drive writes. Microsoft (yes I know) actually has a very cool tool called synctoy, which is free and does differential mirrors.

If you are paranoid, and have money, build your own file server with raid 5, and keep weekly offsite backups, but this can be very expensive. The method I suggested works out cheap (in data backup safety terms) when you work it out as a yearly figure. A nice 320GB drive (per year) and a dvd spindle) per year worked out to about R750. More recent drives have kept me longer than a year.

One other option is to use a net based service where you can create albums. I know google through picasa lets you do this, but you have to buy space, and we have the bandwidth capping problem in this country.

As far as formats go, stick to the big ones and you can't go wrong. I have pics from 10+ years ago (corel photo paint, photoshop psd, jpegs ands bitmaps) that still work fine

 

[bwana]

If we're going to talk about back up regimes for photos here's mine.

Archives are exported in their entirety and copied to dvd and hdd
The masters are exported to dvd and hdd
Full quality jpgs are exported to hdd and dvd
The dvds and hdd are stored outside of the house.

My favourite shots (and those of the kids/family) are uploaded to an online gallery. (last year I uploaded 900+ photos)

My HDD is backed up daily as well thanks to Time Machine. If I find another external I'll start using Aperture's vaults again too.

 

[Nuro]

The dvds and hdd are stored outside of the house.

I think this is important. I was robbed years ago where they took EVERYTHING Also cool if (heaven forbid) you ever have a fire, flood etc.

 

[Fudzy]

Along with backups I keep quite a few photos online, like that photobucket etc. Paid for services are probably alot more reliable though.

 

[Skeptik]

If we're going to talk about back up regimes for photos here's mine.

Archives are exported in their entirety and copied to dvd and hdd
The masters are exported to dvd and hdd
Full quality jpgs are exported to hdd and dvd
The dvds and hdd are stored outside of the house.

My favourite shots (and those of the kids/family) are uploaded to an online gallery. (last year I uploaded 900+ photos)

My HDD is backed up daily as well thanks to Time Machine. If I find another external I'll start using Aperture's vaults again too.

You consider that reliable??

I did this once on a free system, until they decided to charge for it and wiped it clean before I could move them.

 

[bwana]

You consider that reliable??

I did this once on a free system, until they decided to charge for it and wiped it clean before I could move them.

Its a photo-sharing service I already pay for and it's just one of several copies. Apart from there a photo will be on an external hdd as well as on at least two dvds.

 

[Fudzy]

Paid for services usually include off-site backups etc. They're not 100% fail-proof but it's a lot better than keeping a shoe-box of prints in a cupboard somewhere.

 

[Skeptik]

Paid for services usually include off-site backups etc. They're not 100% fail-proof but it's a lot better than keeping a shoe-box of prints in a cupboard somewhere.

OK, paid for, but low quality surely.

 

[Fudzy]

Well that depends on what resolution you store at. Most of my photos are stored between 6 & 10MP.

 

[bwana]

OK, paid for, but low quality surely.

Take flickr for example - the free account lets you upload files up to 5mb (paid accounts double that). Thats easily enough for a high quality (3888 x 2588) jpeg.

 

[Wynsam]

Nas

I am busy setting a over 1 Tb NAS using freenas and new components as a storage solution. It will be a software(done by Freenas) Raid 5 setup over 4 discs.

This will then be supplemented by off site multiple external usb drives.

Its costing me a little but I need the integrity of my data to be without question.

I am currently waiting for the components that I have ordered to arrive. When they do I will build it up, hopefully get it running and let you all know.

 

[medicnick83]

I also have a photo collection, what I did with that is, I burnt it to 2 DVDS, if the 1 is buggered, the 2nd one will be fine, if they both buggered, what's the chances of this file (which is buggered on this DVD being buggered on THAT DVD... follow?)

I also put them in proper cases etc.

 

[Wynsam]

I am also considering putting it in an usual spot and getting data off it via lan. Makes it harder to burgle.

We have a fireproof safe that we use for storage of sensitive stuff. I will probably keep at least one copy of the backups in there.

 

[koffiejunkie]

I'm seriously contemplating dropping a box in a co-location facility on another continent. Call me paranoid, but if WWW3 strikes and London get's nuked (let's suppose I survive such an event and find myself in a condition to care about my photo collection), the backups I keep in my shed or on my server that's hosted in a DC 6 miles from my house ain't gonna help me much.