Digitial Information - is it safe?

Citygirl1

I am thinking of putting my CDs, journals etc on my laptop to save space. I already have my photos on the laptop, the only hard copies I have are the pre-digital ones.

However, I am concerned about digital files not always being compatable with future software and programmes, therefore is it safer to keep hard copies?

pledgeX

Sorry if this is a silly question, but what do you mean by journals?

As for music, as long as you rip the music in a common format, e.g. mp3, you're very unlikely to have a problem with compatibility.

If you do copy it to your computer, you'd be wise to have it all backed up. Best would be to store it on an external hard drive kept somewhere else.

Personally I ripped all my cd's to my computer about 10 years ago and have not owned a cd since.

Another thought, could you not get a CD wallet with plenty of sleeves and store your cd's in that? If you got an A4 sized one I'm sure you could fit in 100 or so in there easily. Do you really need the space that much? I use the wallets for some of my important CDs (expensive applications, valuable files, important photos/videos etc)

Citygirl1

Hi, thanks for your reply. By journals I mean written diaries, I am thinking of maybe scanning the handwritten books I have and typing future ones into Word. Would compability be a problem then? What about photos aswell?

Owain_Moneysaver

Word has an appalling record of file version compatibility. You should save as .txt (which is a plain text file without formatting) and .odf (Open Document Format) which is a documented, non-proprietary standard defined in ISO/IEC 26300:2006 Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument). One objective of open formats like OpenDocument is to guarantee long-term access to data without legal or technical barriers, and some governments have come to view open formats as a public policy issue. Several governments around the world have introduced policies of partial or complete adoption.

Ectophile

My recommendations would be.

1. Use only common file formats that are supported by a wide range of programs.
2. Make backups of everything. And check that the backups can actually be read back.
3. If the physical media (CD, DVD or whatever) looks like it's becoming obsolete, copy the data to something newer before it's too late.

If the originals aren't too bulky, keeping them would be a good safety net just in case.

debitcardmayhem

[QUOTE=Citygirl1;51493739]I am thinking of putting my CDs, journals etc on my laptop to save space. I already have my photos on the laptop, the only hard copies I have are the pre-digital ones.

However, I am concerned about digital files not always being compatable with future software and programmes, therefore is it safer to keep hard copies?[/QUOTE]
Good idea, put everything on there, then when you lose it you will also have a lot more space in your house. along with the hard copies, don't take the laptop outside of the house (so you don't lose it) and then make sure your house insurance will replace all of the originals. Why are you concerned about compatibility , the first thing you should worry about is "have I got copies of everything i can't live without", then work how you should work how and where i should save them/store them.

Notmyrealname

Save the documents either as PDF or RTF.

Mr_Toad

Citygirl1 wrote: »

I am thinking of putting my CDs, journals etc on my laptop to save space. I already have my photos on the laptop, the only hard copies I have are the pre-digital ones.

However, I am concerned about digital files not always being compatable with future software and programmes, therefore is it safer to keep hard copies?

Ask yourself if you think people will be able to read CDs and DVDs in a thousand years like we can old documents.

Technology is a wonderful thing but just because you can do something doesn't make it a good idea.

If you're going to keep the originals then fine but you should review the digital stuff regularly and when technology changes ensure you transfer it to the latest media type.

My parents have thousands of photographs and the 35mm negatives they are printed from plus thousands of 35mm slides. Most of my photographs are digital and they only exist on my computer and the data backups I have.

I worry that my pictures are a lot more vulnerable than my parents 35mm stuff is.