This week I found out the hard way that archiving photos on hard disk is not a good idea. (don’t worry, got back-ups on CD-ROM of most photos) Following a power cut, long story which I will bore you with some time later, my hard disk gave up. One partition has dissappeared completely (the back-up partition), and two of them partially. One of the drives hit partially was the C drive so getting onto the computer took me a full day and a new windows installation!
Anyway, since hard disks are not safe I am wondering what my best option(s) is/are. Of course I make back-ups on CD-ROM but they start to rot away after 2 years. I do not really want to replace my CD-ROMs every other year. Right now is not a problem, but 5 or 6 years from now the number of CD-ROMs will be prohibitively large.
DVD-ROMS are equally vulnerable to rotting, with the added bonus of lower resistance to shocks, scratches etc.
Floppy disks are not an option. Unless as to use as a canvass to print my photos on. 😀
Tape streams (remember them?) may be a nice idea but are not used a lot. It remains to be seen if future computers and software will be able to support them. Are they even still in production?
So what is the best option? Is it just necessary to use CD/DVDs and wait for the next “revolution” in storage media? One that will not rot and is not too damage prone.
By: CWBalmer - 20th July 2005 at 12:43
I use a combination of copies on DVD and an external firewire drive – when you update one, do the other – twice as reliable!!
By: airband1 - 20th July 2005 at 09:10
What about using an external hard drive to put all your data on and just plug it in when you need to add or remove stuff?
By: bkonner - 20th July 2005 at 01:21
Howdy,
CD’s are fine, they just hold less files. Remember to check your backups every so often. At work I use Hewlett Packard DLT autoloaders and Ultrium 215’s. They run minimally $ 10K (the autoloaders). They use magnetic tapes. I have never had one fail. In your case the most realistic option, and a very reasonable one, is using CD’s or DVD’s.
Bkonner
By: David2386 - 19th July 2005 at 15:41
Currently I’m just using CDs as a backup. If I lost my aviation ones, I’d be annoyed but I suppose wouldn’t leave sleep over it. It’s the family, friends and pets ones I’d be more worried about. I’m planning on getting some of them printed, some cheap deals around and they can join the boxes of others.
Since there is no permanent, 100% reliable medium, I think you just have to take the difficcult option and backup in several places. I’d quite like a portable hard drive, I know there is a chance of it crash but I’d like it as a ‘working’ photo album. I have a habit of sending things to CD and not seeing them again for months.
Depending on how much patience, time and how important they are to you, back up in a few places CDs/DVDs, other PC, portable hard drive.
By: seahawk - 19th July 2005 at 15:31
I also went DVD-ROM.
By: bkonner - 19th July 2005 at 01:08
Backups
Howdy,
I am a network administrator. I do this for a living. All medium degrades. Backup devices include tapes (many types), external drives, and DVD/CD ROMS. Never backup data to a device connected to your computer. Never backup a device connected to the same power supply because of a potential power surge. Backing up to a DVD ROM is the best bet. you must check the backup every so often to make sure it has not degraded.
Bkonner
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July 18, 2005 at 9:49 pm