Storing precious photos

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poppellerant wrote: »

Hard drives can be prone to mechanical failure, sometimes without any warning. Memory cards, as you say, can also be prone to failure.

For me, that leaves two methods - DVDs and SSD drives. Personally I would rather store the photos on an SSD as they are more resilient to being knocked or scratched. Do bear in mind that SSD drives are a relatively new technology, but as long as you buy a good brand (ie: Samsung or Intel) you ought to be fine.

Think you may longer be better off with rust spinners, but they are not great and suffer from data rot - ask Kim Dotkom . SSD and usb sticks relies on a very small charge for memory, with time and multiplied by warmer temperatures that charge will leak away if the drive does not get plugged in every so often. Read somewhere about 2 years, or 6 months in hot conditions.

DVDs, especially the cheap ones, the photoactive chemicals decay. I have had batches CD and dvds die in under a year.

You can't ignore multiple backups and one has to be cloud based - even though I dislike storing stuff on someone elses computer, especially with house fires, floods and burglars.

Think this glass is the way forward: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/project-silica/

getmore4less

Whatever you use you have to consider the lifetime of the media and technology to read it.

Even relatively robust read only tech needs checking at a regular intervals against another copy and consider the transition to a more recent media for any archive copies.

DVD has some years yet.

Many tape based archive systems are becoming obsolete.

RichardD1970

I have mine on Amazon Photos, OneDrive and separate partition on hard drive.

renegadefm

Thanks for the advice everyone, but to me it doesnt feel the same storing thousands of personal family photos online. Plus how does my siblings access them when I'm dead and gone? They would hsve to know my account etc

DVDS are safe and can last a lifetime if looked after in proper folders like I have been doing for decades now since my first computer.

At least with DVD storage I can lend them out to family members etc for free.

mksysb

renegadefm wrote: »

Thanks for the advice everyone, but to me it doesnt feel the same storing thousands of personal family photos online. Plus how does my siblings access them when I'm dead and gone? They would hsve to know my account etc

DVDS are safe and can last a lifetime if looked after in proper folders like I have been doing for decades now since my first computer.

At least with DVD storage I can lend them out to family members etc for free.

Maybe so, but will there be anything to play them on in years to come.

Heedtheadvice

All types of backups come with risks and/or costs.
As posted above diversification is the answer with a variety of methods.


DVDs that are archive quality are best for long term storage for that method. Given proper storage they should be good for 10 years but recopy to new disks prior to that. They can still be lost or damaged. Drives should still be available ten years from now and there will othdrwise be somewhere that has the facility. Make these a non distributed/shared set.


Paper can also be lost destroyed/damaged. That is why important stuff is stored in archives/repositories. For large numbers of photos good reproduction is both costly and takes a lot of space.


External hard drives (multiple devices/copies or raid arrays) still easy to interface, store huge amounts fairly cheaply and not subject to major PC problems unlike internal drives (such as lightening strikes but not necessarily some power supply failures or malware whilst plugged in!)
Should be handled carefully. SSDs much more robust but as with most e memory can suddenly fail. Same applies to USB memory sticks.


Cloud storage often free and for photos might take some time initially but does not need lightenig fast upload speeds. Often stored on high resilience servers......but a major downfall is that the person has no control over longevity (such as future of the storage company) other security matters, changes at the whim of the company!


So, IMHO no magic bullet: use more than one of your choice!!

renegadefm

I just want somewhere I can keep photos for my children and their children etc. My parents still got all theirs as normal photos, maybe thats the answer but it seems expencive in comparison to the other options.

My prefered choice given all the options is still DVDS, easy to back up to, relatively easy to store, and accesible to anyone who wants to borrow them.

I just got concerned to see the DVD drives becomming unfashionable so quickly, but then look at Vinyl records, they are back with a bang, maybe all these formats will come back one day.

oldernonethewiser

You could set up your own NAS and use it like a cloud if you don't fancy trusting Google or some other cloud company. I have one based in a relative's house which is one of the three back ups I use.

renegadefm

oldernonethewiser, what is a NAS, and why is it at a relatives house? I'm a bit confused.

I think what I'm trying to get at initially was I do really feel as though the perfectly reliable format DVD and CD for storage is being made to feel outdated prematurely in the computer world.

I'm puzzled why society is branding it old fashioned before its time. I can only assume they are trying to prevent piracy as its so easy to copy music cds and other software and sell or give it away etc. But it seems a bit late for that because you can put hundreds of music cds on one USB stick for example, so that kinda blows my theory out of the water for blank DVD and CD media's demise.

My other theory is they are trying to find ways to make laptops slimmer and lighter, so the first cumbersome thing to go was DVD Roms. But I find this an ironic thing to do when the same shops that sell laptops with no DVD roms still sell blank DVD and CD media. Ok yes I know you can buy portable USB DVD roms, but that in itself is cumbersome and added expense surely?

I realize nothing lasts forever, but look at the way some things come back like Vinyl records. I never thought I'd see that, and now even cassettes, and I read somewhere in America they are producing 8 track cassette players again for nostalgia reasons. But I do feel when it comes to blank media once its gone its gone because I dont think you can associate it with nostalgia in the same way as different music formats which is a shame to me.

Its a shame because we have all become too reliant on the internet for all aspects of life, like banking, storage, purchasing etc etc, which is killing our physical things like the high street shop for example, but the minute this stuff crashes we run around like head less chickens, and what will happen if in the future it crashes for good or a long time, sounds dramatic now, but in time could in some cases be life threatening.

I think we have become such a disposable and wasteful society, its sad really. Sorry rant over.

lindens

renegadefm wrote: »

I just want somewhere I can keep photos for my children and their children etc. My parents still got all theirs as normal photos, maybe thats the answer but it seems expencive in comparison to the other options.

My prefered choice given all the options is still DVDS, easy to back up to, relatively easy to store, and accesible to anyone who wants to borrow them.

I just got concerned to see the DVD drives becomming unfashionable so quickly, but then look at Vinyl records, they are back with a bang, maybe all these formats will come back one day.

open a drop box account and keep them there. give out the account details to family so they can create their own login details. They cacnalso upload their own photos and you can all share each others photos and save locally or print out as desired your favourites