Need to decide cd, DVD or memory stick

Lifeforms

Really the issue is nothing is permanent. But how long do they last? there's too many variables to take into account. Some DVD's/CD's last weeks, some years. Depends on quality amongst many other things like how you even store them. Then you also have future proofing! At some point we will get to the position of not even having things like cd/dvd drives in the current format, and it can only be so much backwards compatable. So say for 10 years your DVD's last fine, but you then think ooh Fred just got married this week, lets go dig out his baby photos for embarrasment sake. "oh look, this DVD doesn't fit in the superultramemoryreadystickdriverthingie" etc. OR aka vinyl, to tape, to cd. I think my point is, don't look too hard into this. Pick what seems suitable, and easy for you. even if Joe Blogs here (aka me too!) comes along and says this way is more better, more suitable, and you should do it just cus.

With the digital era we tend to take several to the one we took on the analogue films. It's far far easier to just take tons and forget about them. So you end up with 15 of the dog catching a ball, 10 are blurry, 1 has the ball in the dogs mouth, and 4 has its head is cut out. But then tend not to delete the 14 that aren't so great. I have that problem myself!

If you're the one going around to other peoples houses to copy these things to share between you all, then a flash drive, or card reader and a card is fine for that. But always keep a copy if you really don't want to lose them.
Days of a fire and the wedding album goes up still counts even though they're in digital format. Online provides a nice solution to that, BUT it itself is never 100% safe either.

I have briefly read your original post re the hdd's, so I guess can't the other families do it themselves as well? Don't be responsible for being the "back up tool" for your whole extended family. You'll only get the blame!

I guess if it were me, I'd do online, even if it's just picasa from google , or rather any cloud storage and print out some instructions, step by step, for others to do. That way, you have at the very least one set of photos/vids where everyone can access or view them.

IF you wish to them back up elsewhere, you can access online to download to something like an external HDD. If one dies/goes titsup, then you have one back up still, to create a second place.

ada1988

I would prefer DVD.and I just do that to keep my photoes.
But some of my friends said that is easy to loose photos.

lonestarfan

[http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/memory-flash/ i have a novatech 16gb for £9.98, the 32gb version is 19.98

I like the look of that one altho its a bit pricey with delivery on top it makes it about £43 for the 2. I can't believe how difficult it is to buy a stick which has good feedback. So many I'm reading when I'm searching have have so much negative feedback left, e.g, kingston, sandisk etc. So if you think the novatech one is ok then I'll pay the money rather than buy a dodgy one to save a few quid and find it loses data/files which is a common theme in the poor feedback.

andy2004

i've never really had any trouble with anything i've bought at novatech, hell my new computer came from there, well the case, motherboard bundle the 3x2tb's 1x1.5tb and the 1tb all samsung, the 3 x enclosures, the cd/dvd rw drives i bought over the years, the packets of dvd+r and dvd-r, and the 16gb memory stick, 1 thing though was my PSU unit, but i really think that was down to something my end, but since i added a extension lead with whatever its called something to do with power surges/ spikes, havent had anymore trouble, but novatech where nice and replaced the psu each time it died, even upgrading the last 450watt to a 550w to see if was to do with the amount of devices connected to it.

The memory stick / flash drive whatever you want to call it, first time i bought one, apart from my 2 mp3 players 2nd 1 bought from ebay first one was bought from bidup.tv
i bought it for using as a testing tool, for when my brother brings round his mates computers which are infected / or have something wrong with them instead of using my mp3 player. 4times bigger than my mp3 player, but currently my sister has borrowed it to watch some movies which i had downloaded.
me thinks i need to buy another one. lol.
oh 1 piece of advice though dont buy the D-shirt 100 pack dvd-r's although cheap i had 2 packs which where bad, 70dvd's out of 200 where unusable, looked like dye runs. tested on 2 different computers 3 hrs to burn a dvd even at max speed of 8x and nothing on the dvd afterwards, done on my nephew Quad core at the time. So i changed brands to the Bulkpaq and subs which had been perfect to the last time i used them.
these are the ones to stay away from http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/consumables/blankdvds/dvd-r/nov-dm100p.html but that was over 3years ago so they should be better now.

Lifeforms

I should hope it is an ultra low price, seeing as THE COMPUTER ISN'T BROKEN. Spammy Ejits.

lonestarfan

Ha ha - I too thought what's that all about I don't need a pc repair!

I bought verbatim 4.7 gb dvds so thanks for the tip about the d shirt.
Only problem with the verbatim dvd today was that it wouldn't eject. I used the safely remove icon but it kept saying it was using another program and couldn't stop, close all programs using this device. All programs were closed. It did this for ages and ages. eventually it released after I shut down and started up again and all the fiekls were safe on there. On the next dvd I copied it did the same again. very annoying.

andy2004

erm, simple test, put in a dvd the wrong way round and then push the eject button, if that works theres something wrong with dvdrw drive.

1 how old is the dvd burner,
2. check the connections.

get a torch and just have a look at the dvdrw make sure no dust around the eject button and the roller mechism
if its over 3years old, and in use a lot it may be worth investing in a £20 replacement.

lonestarfan

Ok I'll try that.
the memory sticks have arrived from novatech today! Only ordered them yesterday afternoon!
Am going to Grandmas tomorrow for an hour so was really pleased as I can get those photos off her iphone and backed up before she loses them!