Thread: Saving photo files

Originally Posted by Bundalene

In years gone by we kept copies of photos as film negative and I believe this has a reasonable life as long as they are kept in a dark dry cool place.

For the last 10 years or so We have been taking pics and movies in a digital format. These are stored on our hard drive and I back up these files every 6 months to DVDs, then leave a copy at our in-laws place.

3 questions.

What is the life of data on a DVD?
The Gold type are the best and keep the data for long time and have archival quality

As a second option, is 'Cloud Storage" a safe way and only back up to DVD every other year or so?

I have had the cloud storage option available for a while now as I use Trend as out PC security.

Trend Micro SafeSync Review - SmallCloudBuilder

Are there other options?
I save my images in 2 externals drives and on memory sticks.

I am not a fan of mirroring or multiple hard drives. A friend with duplicate hard drives lost all his photo files in one lightening strike.

As long as you have protection in your power point and only plug the externeal drive when saving the risk is very low

Please keep it simple as I am not a computer GURU.

Erich

I also have a Raid sistem in my PC with additional data HDD in use during processing.

There are no hard and fast figures for life expectancy of optical disks. Quite simply they vary, even between disks in the same packet.

Optical discs, such as CDs, DVDs, or Blu-ray, are comprised of layers of plastic and metal and are, depending on their construction, susceptible to damage. Optical discs have a polycarbonate base layer on the read side. The base layer strengthens the disc and maintains the distance between the drives read head and the data. The base layer is subject to damage caused by scratches, dirt, oil (from fingertips), and other matter that can interfere with the reading (and writing) process.

Some form of film or photosensitive dye is used between the base layer and a reflective metal layer. This intermediate layer changes the reflective qualities of the metal layer, allowing the laser to reflect off the metal layer where necessary to record the data.

Professionally recorded discs use a plastic layer that has the reflective mask moulded as pits. Recordable discs use heat or light to modify the photosensitive layer. Rewritable discs can return the photosensitive layer to its original state, allowing fresh data to be written to the restored disc.

The critical part of an optical disc is the photosensitive layer. Although protected by the base layer it can still become unreadable, and because large amounts of data can be stored on an optical disc a significant amount of data can be lost.

Potential sources of damage to optical discs include:
§ solvents (including those found in ink) can eat through layers and affect the reflective metal layer
§ polycarbonate can flow over time, changing the optical qualities of the protective base layer and making the disc unreadable
§ sharp writing instruments, even used on the label side, can penetrate layers and damage the metal layer
§ temperature and humidity can cause degradation
§ corrosion and oxidisation of the reflective layer can make a disc unreadable

Handling optical discs:
§ handle discs by the outer edge or centre hole only, do not touch the disc surface
§ do not bend or flex discs
§ do not write on the data area of the disc
§ use special disc markers to write on the label surface
§ keep disc away from dirt or foreign matter

Discs should be stored in their original cases or in a sleeve, bag, or envelope made from an inert material such as polyethylene or polypropylene. Discs should not be stacked or lent against one another; they should be stored standing on edge like books.

Discs must not be exposed to prolonged sunlight or ultraviolet light. Storage areas should not have windows and use fluorescent lighting. Temperature should be between 4 °C and 20 °C, and relative humidity (RH) 20–50%. Ideal long-term storage is 18 °C and 40% RH.

I'd also use USB flash drives as part of the regime, their life seems to be related to the number of read/writes. For backup of precious memories they could be useful.

I'd also verify the backups from time to time, that way you will catch degredation before it becomes critical.

HTH

Originally Posted by Bundalene

Are there other options?

Hi Bundalene,

Take a look at Internet based backup services. This is quite different to mirroring to a cloud drive. I use Carbonite.com which costs me about $50/year. There's no storage limit and I have about 50Gb of data backed up. There's a few things (some general, some specific to Carbonite) to be aware of with this kind of service:

- You need a decent upload speed (512kb/s minimum)
- Look at how it impacts your data plan as some plans include unlimited uploads and some don't
- I had to install Carbonite's backup software on my PC
- With carbonite I can allow backups to happen automatically or I can schedule them
- The system should be capable of uploading only the parts of a file that have changed, rather than re-uploading the whole file (I have some large .pst files). Carbonate does this.
- Check the file retention policy. For example, carbonate will only retain a file for 30 days after you delete it from your PC
- I can access my backups from most Internet connected devices - any Mac/PC, iPhone, iPad etc. This is excellent if I'm at work and want to access a file from my home PC.
- The initial backup of a machine can take a long, long time. Mine took about a month.
- Make sure that recovery is practical if your PC dies. This is mostly a question of bandwidth.

"Backup as a Service" is likely to undergo rapid evolution. Expect overlap and probable convergence with cloud storage and cloud computing in general.

i have 2 external hard drives which i back my computer this one and past computers , i do this about ever 2 months