[Gllug] Long-term storage of digital photographs

[Richard Huxton]

John Winters wrote:
> What would the team recommend as a medium for long-term archiving of
> digital photographs?  I would like to be able to go back at least 20
> years (like you can with shoe-boxes full of conventional photographs and
> negatives) and embarrass my children in front of their spice/children.
> Do CD-Rs and DVD-Rs have proven data life?

Paper is probably the only thing with the track-record to do that, and 
I'm not sure if inkjet-printed paper will do that. Anyone know if 
snappy-snaps etc. just use a good inkjet when producing digital prints 
or have they got something else?

What I suggested to a friend who asked me recently was to get two 
external HDD's and back up to them in alternate weeks. You can get 160GB 
fairly cheaply and assuming disk sizes keep increasing you can just 
replace them every couple of years. Unless both fail at the same time, 
you should be fine.

Personally, I'm trying to be more disciplined about what I keep. I can 
come off a week's holiday with 500 photos - currently I bin about 300 of 
these and then have some vague idea of cropping/touching up some of the 
others. In reality, I should trim it down to 10 and bin the rest - I'm 
never going to look at them.

--
   Richard Huxton
   Archonet Ltd
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