How Do I Safely Store My Data..Long Term

My earliest files are dated from Feb 1981: they're online, backed up, and also reside on the original 9-track tape. It's doubtful the average Joe has that kind of dedication to digital preservation. My recommendation to those that want to try is to migrate your entire stash every year or so to a different disk (just to keep in practice), and to get properly versed in magnetic tape (to avoid correlated error in the hard drive industry). Have you seen an entire hard drive product line collapse due to systematic error? Not pretty. Needless to say, you also need offsite copies, documentation, and absolutely standard formats for the volume archive and image file.

Because you don't have any of these tedious routines with a stack of toned B&W printed, or KR25 (RIP), there's real value to some backup in analog form. 🙂 Plus, you don't need advanced training to retrieve and enjoy the pics (relatives will thank you).
 
I would say that a RAID 5 (or 6) is your best option. I am not sure about the longevity of Blue Ray discs and burning that volume of data would cost lot of time. If you want additional backup to you RAID system that maybe consider to make additional back up of selected data (smaller volume)

I am using just a simple RAID 1 but I am still below 1 TB ...
 
Decide what you want to protect and then back it up in more than one location and, if you can, more than one format.

I engage in a bit of overkill, perhaps, because I had the hardware. I use Aperture. Its library lives on my laptop. It works with images on a 2-tb external drive (referenced masters, in the parlance). Original out-of-camera files live on another external drive. "Keeper" Jpegs live on the 2-tb drive. Everything is backed up to a third external drive. Original files are also backed up online to an Amazon S3 bucket, and the Jpegs are backed up to a different online service. I use Flickr and have a website, so anything there can be retrieved if necessary.
 
just got a box of negatives ....

just got a box of negatives ....

KenR said:
Finding anything among 3Tb of data, even if you could look through it, will be the daunting task of your heirs. If it's too much for you to edit down, they might just toss the whole thing.
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My wife's grand mother passed away. Her husband had many cameras, one actually made it to me. Thus, he had many negatives.

I got a box of them. ...... 5 books of 100 sleeves, and about 10 folders/envelopes with around another 200 negatives. Most are 6x4.5, some are 6x9, some seem to be cut to 6X6, and a few cut to oddball sizes ...

There is no meta data at all, no organization except loosely by date/location as the negatives tend to be grouped.

Some of the negatives has deteriorated, others have not, none have been a total loss.

Assuming that my spindled medium does not die, and Adobe meta data is still readable, my heirs will have a much simpler job!

That said, it will be incumbent on me to keep the medium current until my death!

Dave
 
That is not surprising. The negatives were on nitrate-based film stock. An unstable material and subject to spontaneous combustion. Even current acetate "safety" film will deteriorate over time. Not polyester.

Keith said:
To the people who keep insisting 'shoot film' I wish you luck.

I've done a couple of archival scanning jobs from negatives dating back to the early part of last century and some of them were serioulsy on their last legs. Admittedly storage had been pretty casual but a negative is not a permanent storage solution for a photographic image. It may be so within your own life time and that may be enough for you ... but for future generations film is just a material on it's way back to mother earth!
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New Archival DVD technology - Lifetime solution?

New Archival DVD technology - Lifetime solution?

I just read about a new DVD-type archival photo storage technology called "M Discs". They're made by a company called Millenniata. The technology is discussed in the latest issue of Shutterbug magazine. Here's the link to the company: http://millenniata.com/m-disc/

They claim that the the M Discs are made of inert materials that don't degrade over time. Apparently current style DVD's lose their ability to hold onto data due to the degradation of organic dye material used in their construction.

Data can be written on the new discs with most modern DVD recording technology. They are write-only. Once data is put on them, they can't be erased or written over.

If what I read is true, this could be the big breakthrough in banishing our concerns about archival-ness of image files! 🙂
 
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