advice request: storing images on CD

FrankS

FrankS

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I'm a newbie on this so be gentle. Any advice on storing photos on CD welcome. For instance: CD or DVD?
 
I wouldn't do it. I lost all the pictures I had burned to cd's after only a couple of years. Most were only partially readable. Only a handful were okay, and these were the ones stored label down (these were in double cd jewel cases).

Luckily this was before I went digital, so I still have the original slides and negatives.

External disks hold more content, and are faster to read from and write to.
Cloud storage isn't bad either.
 
CDs have barely any capacity given the size of modern high-res photo files (85MB each on my RX1RII), DVDs are not much better. As for longevity, the NIST and Library of Congress did a very thorough survey on the subject: http://loc.gov/preservation/resources/rt/NIST_LC_OpticalDiscLongevity.pdf

A good starting point is the dpBestFlow guidelines on backup: http://dpbestflow.org/links/39

Otherwise here is my take on the subject: https://majid.info/blog/digital-imaging-workflow-matters/#backup

Whatever you do, do NOT use flash memory like SD or CF cards as a backup medium. The data on idle flash media can be lost in as little as one year.
 
I save my images on several external drives as DNG files, and I save on my computer the jpg versions of these images. Get two 1TB drives, Frank. They are cheap these days. One drive is a back-up drive.I also save images (again) at smugmug.
 
Ditto advice on the external hard drives. I actually back up to two, at intervals, and keep one in my business office. High resolution files fill up even DVDs quickly.

However, one extra thing that I do for family photos is to send my relatives the very best ones on DVDs, and at least a few years ago, Taiyo Uden brand CDs and DVDs were much more highly regarded than the usual types you can find in an office supply store in terms of likely longevity. I try (and usually fail) to be disciplined about this because most of the younger relatives are shooting all their photos on phones, sometimes downloading them to a computer, and the odds are slight that those images will be around for them to look at in probably very few years. If they lose the discs, or don't bother to update the files to some future new format, I feel like I have at least tried to do my bit for family history posterity.
 
I do have a Seagate 1TB external hard drive. Is that flash memory?
The CD/DVD storage is a redundancy.
 
I'd be using an external hard drive and replacing it every few years .... they are not exactly expensive.

So .... shoe box in the attic not good enough for you? LOL :D
 
A regular 1TB drive for ~$100 will not be flash storage. Flash drives are called SSD (solid state drives) and you're currently looking at ~$300+ for 1TB.

All digital storage mediums have eventual archival reliability problems (as does film and paper). The best is probably to periodically, but regularly, migrate your digital files to new media. A problem though is if files have become corrupted in the interim. They'll just be copied over as is to the new media. There is software that will ensure each copy is an exact one. So if a file is known to be good, it will be copied exactly. In my experience so far with hard drives (I have many), file corruption is rare. It's more usual for a drive to just die. Hard drives apparently also don't like to just sit unused for a long time. They need some exercise for all the internal moving parts to keep working properly.

Definitely also use something like Dropbox or Google Drive, or whatever Microsoft offers, or Amazon's AWS, etc. By putting your files in the 'cloud' you essentially let someone else a lot more technically competent worry about all this media reliability and redundancy stuff. It's their jobs to ensure your data persists. About the biggest risk with these services is if they go bust. But I suspect Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple probably won't. In any case, cloud storage is meant as a backup to your own 'local' storage. Don't ever rely on only one.

As for what happens to your stuff after you pass... that's definitely another topic. But also an interesting one.
 
I started an experiment around 10 years ago. Favorite songs were recorded on music CD`s and I left them in the car I used for work which was parked in open, 0 deg some winter days, 125+ in summer. One CD has a small glitch on one cut.

Still it is a crappy idea. Use multiple hard drives, work duplicated.
 
CD deteriorate over time.. I made that mistake 12 years ago.

My digital photo library is on external 3TB HD. The backup is also external HD but smaller since it only contains the contents for 1 to 2 years worth of photo. It gets replace even if not full by end of second year. The old drive is store away.

When the 3tb external main photo drive get filled, I get the next bigger HD and copy the contents to it. Put the old drive into storage. At that point the smaller HD that were in storage get recycled since the just put away old main drive has the all their data

All disk drive have a mean time to failure (mtf).

Consumer brand disk usually never have that info publish versus enterprise grade. Mtf is a derived statistically arrived data point based on forced over usuage testing. Even w/ a very high mtf, that does mean the drive might fail very short of the mtf. It could be cause by overheating or bumping the drive by accident when the head is seeking to the next track.

Gary
 
Agree on unreliability of CD's. I have some have developed "bubbles".
 
Nothing is forever. Especially digital stuff. I do use external hard drives and so far so good. Digital is the medium used now, as to its longetivity, it's too new and I don't know. I do have CDs I burned from 2005 and I checked a few of them and they still work. Some folks I know make paper copies of digital photos and keep, just in case. Is film the way to go? All this redundancy with digital, is it necessary? Didn't do all this with film! Maybe my grand children will find out.

I believe film, especially black and white negatives, will last a long time. I have family negatives taken in the 1930's that still look just fine. Someday I will digitize them so as I can work with 21st century technology, like photoshop, email and the internet.
 
Get two or more backup drives and backup in tandem. I use one drive to drop all of my files there. When I am done processing those files I want to keep, I backup to two drives as well the Cloud. Amazon has a great deal. Don't keep any images you like on your computer. All drives fail eventually. One can never have enough backups of digital media.
 
I would use DVDs instead of CDs. There will be less of them to keep track of. The longevity of storage depends on the quality of the media, environmental conditions and luck. DVD/CD long-term storage does not enjoy a robust reputation. This is probably because more variables affect their longevity. If you decide to use CD/DVD storage do not buy the least expensive media you can find (well... you could use dirt cheap media, but then it would be a good idea to make redundant back ups on a quarterly basis).

If you have an Amazon'Prime account you receive unlimited Cloud photo storage. If I remember correctly, they support raw image storage. If you you purchase items from Amazon, have a Kindle, stream Amazon's audio or video content this is a cost effective photo storage solution.

A 1 TB external drive is about $60 (which is also less than the $99 Amazon Prime annual fee). Even though you need two drives (because is is prudent to back up your back up) this is still less expensive than Amazon Prime. The external drive backups can be executed and managed automatically by inexpensive Apps.

I don't know about limits for DropBox or the numerous other free Cloud storage options.

I think Flickr still offers free unlimited JPEG storage. All you have to do is make sure your image preferences are automatically set to the most private settings so only you can see the images. However I speculate downloading in mass in case of a local data catastrophe could be extremely inconvenient. To be complete even with a fast internet connection, disaster recover from any Cloud solution is slow.
 
Thanks for all your advice!

I'm set for a while. Today's mail brought a kind and generous gift from B2, in the form of a DVD writer with a single usb connector that will work for my macbook air. Thank you Bill!
Between an ext. hard drive, DropBox, and regular export to dvd, I should be good.
 
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