Hi!
I discovered the "need more storage" thread just now, by looking in the
archives. Long term storage is a hot topic among my friends over here
at the moment, but nobody seems to have any "best practice" to point
to.
"Nobody" includes me too :-) but I would very much like to establish
a good practice for myself.
So by googling, and some thinking, I've come down to a list of things to
consider. I'm not sure if this is a good list to go by, and would very much
like to hear some opinions:
1. Longevity of storage medium (Hard-drive, DVD, etc.)
2. Longevity of the technology used to access the medium (USB, SCSI, etc.)
3. Longevity of software support for the chosen file format (RAW, TIFF, etc.)
Then there is:
4. Data safeguarding (backup routines etc.)
5. Data availability (access time to a file)
6. Production volume (number of exposures and edit-files)
7. Convenience
8. Cost (both time and money)
By any measure, a solution to cover all this points will be a trade-off
between several of them. Convenience and longevity pull in the same
direction, for example, while cost pulls the other way.
So what do you think? And how do you store your precious moments?
Jostein, here is my very simple solution which is probably not that good
too.
1. I have two hard drives on my PC... I have a free-ware piece that
copies/deletes everything that was changed-added/deleted on one drive to
the other drive. So I have about 120 GB of logically mirrored storage.
My computer is protected by UPS in case of power surge. Few times
already it managed to survive.
2. Since I am approaching the moment where my capacity will be exceeded
I've started the process of organizing my PEFs and index JPGs and
transferring them to DVDs. I routinely use CDs and DVDs only by
Verbatim. Verbatim CDs seem to hold for 3-4 years easily. I can say
nothing about Verbatim DVDs because enough time hasn't passed yet.
3. My first backup solution was two CD copies of everything. Now I can
consolidate in roughly 6:1 proportion so that my CD wallets will be
useful for some time longer. And just in case I have two more backup
copies of some of my files.
The main question I keep asking myself is this however. Suppose now that
I manage to keep my files (both from scanned film and digital) for, say,
25 years. So, suppose today I am 60 (I am gonna be 35 soon) and I want
to review some of my Norwegian travel memories ;-)...
Will there be a program, a software piece able to read the PEFs or DNGs
or JPGs or TIFFs in 25 years?
Boris
