What’s the best for long term storage? I’ve got pics of my grannies that are gone. Some on a old laptop i need to get off before it fails.


That laptop has a cd drive, but my new laptop doesn’t. USB flash?

I’ve read ssd has life cycle.

SD cards?

Print the pics out at Walmart / cbs/ Walgreens??

I would go with the proven CD-R technology. You can purchase an External CD player/burner from Amazon that works with Windows XP to 10. You can use Verbatim UltraLife Archival Grade Gold Recordable Disc CD-R which last 10 times longer than other premium CD's. Links are to Amazon, but you can buy these items from many other places.

Also, you're not limited to a single technology, so a USB flash drive can work as a backup. I keep both CD's and an external hard drive in a safe deposit box as well as duplicates at home. You can never have too many backups unless it's something you don't want anyone else to see and then even 1 copy is 1 too many.

Might want to rethink that as I have had a lot of the cd-r with movies on them bite the dust...I now just keep multiple copies on different external drives.

That's what you get with cheap CR-R blanks. For long time storage you got to be willing to pay lots for archive grade CD-R blanks.

Nowadays, I'd put my trust in multiple copies, one of them being The Cloud. I'm paying about $12/year for 100 GB on Amazon, beyond what I've got with a Prime membership. Prime gives you unlimited free picture storage. All my laptops, desktops, and phones automatically send their pics to the Amazon Cloud. The 100 GB is for home video and backups of my various websites.

Beyond that, I have at least two hard drives storing stuff. They are physically separated, and I verify the images every six months or so. When one drive dies (after 3-5 years) I copy stuff onto a new drive. You can now buy Seagate 2TB USB drives for $65. That's incredibly cheap.

The other thing I can suggest is that sharing files with your family and friends are a good extra backup. That is, if you've got pics of Grannie, make sure a copy goes out to all your family members. That way, they'll probably survive no matter what.

German CD-R didn't last any better than the Chinese ones, but to be fair it could have something to do with being stored in occasional 48 celsius heat.

Do yourself a favor. If you use a cloud storage system, especially a paid one, make SURE you record the login information and TELL someone where it is. If no one knows you have all grandmas pics in the cloud, no one will look for them when you get hit by the proverbial bus. And leaving the login info saves your heirs from having to go through a runaround with whoever. Sharing the pics ahead of time as mentioned is also a good idea, but no guarantee they will archive properly either. This all from personal experience.

If you click the link I included for the Archival Grade CD-R blanks you'll see they are made differently than regular CD-R blanks and are good for 100 years under reasonable conditions. Make multiple copies and store them in various locations. One advantage of the CD-R is that the format is independent of the OS. That is, you can view a CD made on a Windows machine on a Mac, or on your TV using a player that supports CD's (most blueray players).

Thank you Mac, I shall give them a whirl.

Also look at M-discs: M-disc

I wouldn't bother storing liberal media, even short term, conservative media is still in too short a supply to start storing it (need it for breeding new ones), and unbiased media will not record.

I backup my photos onto two external drives; one for the gun safe and one for the safety deposit box at the bank. Those are good but temporary so getting your favorites onto CD/DVD and printed as well would be a good way to make sure they're around for the long haul......

Having done a tour of duty in the disk drive industry, I can tell you that the uncorrectable error rate on CDs is much higher than that of hard drives. Also, CDs are slower. They are handy if you want to move data from one place to another, but they are not the best storage solution,

For about $60, you can get a 1 TB external USB hard drive. 2 TB isn't that much more expensive.

The first thing you do is an image of your C drive, and update it every once in a while. That way, your whole C drive can be restored, including your operating system. Then you make a folder on it for your personal pictures and stuff.

My personal pictures are actually on one such drive, and my hard drive is on another. When the one with the image of my hard drive is not actually in use, it's in my fire safe.

I keep ALL my data on a separate partition of my hard drive, and that data automatically backs up to a second physical hard drive...and when that occurs it is automatically backed up to a NAS. I am vulnerable to catastrophic loss of my house, and have been thinking of how I might back it up off-site. I r-e-f-u-s-e to use some third party's server, though. I want 100% exclusive custody of my data.

The problem with all automatic backup schemes is that they are vulnerable to hacking, including ransomware, and even if you have top quality security software, a lightning strike can destroy all but the best engineered systems. If you have files worth backing up use external hard drives that get disconnected and stored away on a shelf and in a safe deposit box just in case of break-in, fire, etc.

You're justified in your concern about third party cloud storage. Even if encrypted, a hacker can delete it and a bankruptcy filing can make it unavailable.

I see people keep thinking their experience with cheap CD-R's is relevant to archival grade CD-R's and DVD's, but it's not. Optical media is what the government uses for archival purposes because it's by far the most likely to retain data over decade long periods as compared to any magnetic or stored charge device (flash cards and drives).

Thanks for the info.

I’ll like the physical backup plus cloud storage idea. Not really worried about hackers. It’s just Christmas, birthday party, reunion pics..

3 copies, 2 formats, 1 off sight. I think that is what Kim Komando recommends.

This is not an easy subject, all media fails and media players become obsolete. For instance I have lots of 5.25 floppies but fortunately nothing I really care about should the last 5.25 floppy drive in the basement die. Anybody remember Zip Drive?

I would probably go with a quality CD, should be good for 10 years, and a good external hard drive which should be good for a couple years anyway. Long odds that both will fail at the same time. The external drive because it's easier to keep backups current, not doing so is something I've lived to regret. Though keep in mind that Murphy's Law says the more important it is, the sooner it'll fail.

And plan on updating archives every couple years with fresh media and the then-current format. Off-site storage of a copy of everything important has been a required strategy since the days of Grace Hopper.wiki

Do not trust flash drives any farther than you can throw them though they are better than they were a few years ago.

Denton,

Always consider compatibility with those hard drives.Have an old computer that failed but hard drive is ok. It's an ATA with NTFS file format. With all the junk in the basement you'd think I'd have another machine that could handle that? NOOOO!

if you choose DVD , CD to store data : among other things bacteria growth can damage the CD/DVD materials. to see a list of other hazards :

http://www.cd-info.com/archiving/degradation/index.html

nighthawk,

Is there data on that PATA drive that you really need? I might be able to dig up something - either an enclosure, or an old pc that will accept it.

Multiple offsite storage locations. Personal experience, flood of 1997. Had multiple clients who religiously backed up their data... And the back up copies sat right next to their computers. Saturated in flood mud after the water went away. Also, do not depend on safety deposit boxes. A couple folks kept backups and keepsakes in safety deposit boxes that were ALSO filled with flood mud. One individual paid significant $$$'s to recover video tapes of a late daughter from tapes stored in a safety deposit box.

I do not have a silver bullet. But, recommend the strategy above of multiple copies in multiple locations for anything that is of significant financial or sentimental value. Also as above, make sure someone else knows "Where" and "How" to access? Which Cloud service? What credentials? Which computer? Which USB drive? Which Directory Path?

Thanks but nothing really important. Mostly nuisance stuff like a 2x16 LCD module driver I'd written and tested. Frustrating to have to write another. Next remake custom CAD symbols I'd gotten just right.

Boot RAM failed and in those days it was often on the video card. So when I can get to it I'll find a replacement video card on E-Bay. Maybe, VESA bus. Or I bet I can find an external drive box to USB for not much.

Thanks again.

Did a really fun few years at Iomega. Zip disks were reputedly only very reliable for 3 years.

I think I could loan you and old desktop for those old drives...

Thanks Denton but I'll solve it when the mood strikes. Nothing on there very important that wasn't on a CD. Actually in re-writing that driver (in C) it's cleaner code the second time. Didn't Zip Drive use the now extinct printer port?

Funny, the drive will interface on my Windows 98 machine which uses the FAT system so it has to be the primary drive to read NTFS. Boot to XP and not enough memory. Ok, Linux (Mint) is on the drive (dual boot) but different video card and probably not enough memory. Linux goes to terminal mode but demands a password. I don't remember setting one and there's no password in my log for that machine. So try every default password on the Internet and none work. Sort of a perfect storm of failure. A hard lesson that I tell everyone else to do - keep backups current on something compatible.