Re: archiving of digital photos
- From: Alan Browne <alan.browne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 04 Sep 2008 22:40:20 -0400
Ray Fischer wrote:
Alan Browne <alan.browne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:James Silverton wrote:
I wonder what is or are the best media for archiving? Have you tried randomly recalling some of the older images and checking for loss of quality?Long life "gold" CD's or DVD's. 100+ years in benign condtions.
The odds of a DVD being readable in 40 years (much less 100) is pretty
close to zero.
First of all: The expected 'life' of the DVD for readability is estimated to be that long. That doesn't mean it will be useful or desirable to do so (though historians will love it for the quality of the data). For any ordinary person, if the data lasts 30 - 60 years, that would be sufficient. The point is that unlike ordinary DVD's, these will last 20X or more longer.
40 years? Maybe not (see below*).
But the chances of a DVD being readable in 10 or 20 years is much higher. And by then a regular dvd will not be readable, but a gold dvd will. It's the exercise of re-copying that is less likely to occur that is the problem.
And (in any case) I bet that unlike early formats such as 5.25" floppies, 5.25 optical media will be around for a lot longer; in part because of people's non-computer related media (eg: DVD movies).
Why?
Do you still have an 8-inch floppy disk drive attached to your
computer? How about a 5.25 inch floppy drive? They were widely
used about 20 years ago.
* Believe me, there are many people keeping these old formats alive for hobby and other reasons. It might not be convenient, but they can be recovered if the media is valid. That is unlikely with a 20 year old magnetic based floppy but 'possible' with a regualr DVD or CD and pretty certain with a gold DVD/CD.
The point being that you have to plan on copying the data to some new
media on a regular basis. No matter how reliable the media it's
worthless crap if you have no way of getting it into a computer.
See above. The DVD's will not need recopying as long as they are gold and kept in reasonable conditions.
I don't do this, by the way. I've gone to a mode of backing up to external hard disks and just moving the media forward as the capacities (and transfer bandwidth) grow.
That does not mean that it is the best solution for everyone; and when BluRay Gold writeable DVD's come out, capable of 50 GB (or 100 GB), they will be a viable alternative for offsite, long term, stable storage.
That's up to the OP to decide.
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- References:
- Re: archiving of digital photos
- From: David J Taylor
- Re: archiving of digital photos
- From: James Silverton
- Re: archiving of digital photos
- From: Alan Browne
- Re: archiving of digital photos
- From: Ray Fischer
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