My archival system is as follows:
At the end of the day, the photos get uploaded from SD to a notebook. I
may do a little editing and such, but always keep a copy of the original
image untouched. The images all go into a folder named for the date and
possibly the location of the shots.
The files are then copied (not moved) across my LAN to a standalone
network hard drive. Once that's done, I'm ok with the thought of
erasing the SD card because now I have two copies.
After I've got enough images on the network drive to fill a few CD's,
I'll burn two copies of each CD generated from the images on the network
drive.
Only after I've got a couple of CD's will I consider erasing the images
off the network drive. Even then I may hang onto them on the network
drive for convenience. By this point I've probably erased them off the
notebook's hard drive.
So the idea is I've always got at least two copies: SD/Notebook,
Notebook/Network drive, Network Drive/CD, and finally CD/CD.
It's impossible to know the lifespan of the CD's. I do keep one
'working' copy, and one 'archival' copy. My working copy goes into a CD
wallet that I'm frequently referring to. The archival copy goes into a
jewelcase and gets stored in a big box in a closet somewhere. If I ever
find one of the CD's in the wallet to fail, I'll just make another copy
using the archival copy as the master.
In the end, I'll probably have the CD's longer than any CD player. At
some point down the road I'll have to copy all my CD's to something none
of us have heard of yet. ;)
Dave
