Avoid data loss

[Rogier]

Recently I had to go back to a set of CD/DVD's that I had burned in 2005 and found that some of the disks had become unreadable 😱

Already have found out the hard way that one should not write with a Sharpy on the disk. Since the aggressive ink damages the data layer :bang:

Also leaving a hard drive sit still in a closet for a long period of time might render it useless.

Besides fixing, rinsing and storing our film and prints properly. I think it even more important to preserve our important files in a manner that does not decay over time.

Of course there still remains the problem that in 10 - 50 - 100 years from now one might have trouble opening the file format. But that's an other question.

Check out these M-Discs:

http://millenniata.com/

 

[Rogier]

Nope these disk are nicely stored in various sleeves in a box inside a dark closet free from extreme temperature swings.

Eventually I was able to get most of the data back. Indeed with a different reader, changing disk speeds etc. But still its good to know that we really should not rely on archiving our images on self burned media.
The fact that we can't erase a CD/DVD gives us a false sense of security...

 

[Particular]

Storing large amounts of data on CD/DVDs is really uneconomical, as well as impractical. You would need to buy over $600 worth of M-disks to store 1TB of data, while you can buy 1TB hard drives for $100-$125. I think buying 5 1TB HDs and storing them in different locations is a much better and safer strategy than spending it on lots of loose discs.

 

[jbielikowski]

my biggest fear, possible loss of digital photographs just vanished.

 

[Jockos]

The new rapsberry pi computers looks like a nice alternative for a off site storage server!

 

[Teuthida]

Shoot film. Store negatives in sleeves. Dont lose the sleeves. Problem solved.

 

[Vics]

The same thing happened to my wife, and while many thought she had not actually written the files to the discs, my daughter, who is not only beautiful, but also a PC genius, took the discs home with her and downloaded software that allowed her to recover all the pictures, then saved them up to her Picassa so we could access. So don't give up on those discs yet!

 

[janosh]

Sharpie effect on discs is pretty well known. I do identify discs minimally in the clear area near the hub, but I count on "archival" paper sleeves. My safe files are all RAW and/or TIFF, which makes cloud storage unrealistic. Cloud is already the best bet for JPEGs, documents etc (Google Docs for both).

 

[bwcolor]

Are you all saying that writing with a Sharpie on the back surface of a DVD will eventually damage the data layer on the other side?

That is hard to believe.

Now, I know that the materials upon which the Sharpie has been applied to will deteriorate.. Sharpie..or no Sharpie.

 

[Matus]

I find that one reasonable way is to use a RAID system. I use the most primitive one - RAID 1 which basically means having 2 identical copies on two hard drives. If one dies - it will be replaced and the content of the remaining one will be mirrored again. But if one has more than a 1 TB of data to be stored, it would make sense to use RAID 5 or RAID 6. But there are also possible issues (based on what I have read on Wikipedia).

 

[Jockos]

I find that one reasonable way is to use a RAID system. I use the most primitive one - RAID 1 which basically means having 2 identical copies on two hard drives. If one dies - it will be replaced and the content of the remaining one will be mirrored again. But if one has more than a 1 TB of data to be stored, it would make sense to use RAID 5 or RAID 6. But there are also possible issues (based on what I have read on Wikipedia).

This could be a problem tough. If your PSU goes bonkers, it could fry your drives. Unless you have USB drives. Problem with USB drives that have external power is that lightning can kill them.
I keep one copy of my pictures in the computer, and one copy off the power grid, only connect it when I do a backup.

 

[Particular]

Are you all saying that writing with a Sharpie on the back surface of a DVD will eventually damage the data layer on the other side?

That is hard to believe.

Now, I know that the materials upon which the Sharpie has been applied to will deteriorate.. Sharpie..or no Sharpie.

Yes, the read-side of the CD/DVD is the carrier, and the data is stored closer to the back side of the disc. If you scratch the front, you can still buff it up to make it readable, but if you scratch the back it is game over. The solvent in a marker will attack the protective layer on the back and potentially cause damage over time.

 

[geertvn]

Ten years ago I had to throw ca. 300 cds in the bin (scans from slides mostly). Almost all of them were unreadable after only a couple of months.
Some I put in double jewel cases, and remarkable was that the ones with the text-side facing down were all perfectly readable, while the ones in the same case with the text-side up gave a lot of errors. (Nothing was written on the disks though.)

Lesson learned, I never used a cd or dvd for storage since.
At least I still have the slides.

 

[ColSebastianMoran]

It's difficult to be safe. I think the only safe storage is something that you use periodically, so you know it is still good.

I put my backup on a large external disk. As I add files to the backup, I use the disk every week or so. After three years, I copy the whole thing to a brand new, larger external disk which becomes my new backup.

Keep two sets of all the above, in different locations. I think this is pretty safe.

I hate CD/DVD. Too small, too many stories of unreadable discs. To me, this is a convenience medium, not a backup storage medium.