How should I permanently store digital photographs?

timeOday writes:

5.25" disks were never in widespread usage compared to CDs
today. Computers themselves weren't in widespread usage them compared
to now.

True enough.

Besides, things change. 20 years ago home computers couldn't even
display photorealistic images (Amiga HAM mode notwithstanding), and
there were a huge number of different manufacturers of incompatible
computers and media. The technology has matured a lot.

Yes.

In the late 60s you could look back at the previous 30 years in
aerospace and honestly say that *everything* had changed. That's
how long it took to go essentially from biplanes to landing on the
moon. Now, a little over 30 years later, we're still using airplanes
very similar to the late 60s.

Yes and no. There are *still* people flying wood-and-fabric
airplanes, as a hobby. And there are still A&P mechanics certified to
repair them. And that's *another* 40 years down the road.

I cannot say for sure that's hapenning to computers, but I think it
is.

I think it *has*. I think CDs and jpeg and tiff and ASCII are the
"wood and fabric airplanes", though -- which look like they're going
to be supported on into the forseeable future.

After reading the "Dirty little secret" article, I realize the
author and I are looking at the same information and coming to
different conclusions. I don't dismiss the author's opinions, I'm
just stating some reasons why I think he may be mistaken on some
things. On other things, I think he's right on, for instance I
would *not* have confidence in being able to read a Microsoft Word
or PowerPoint document 50 years from now. On the other hand I would
be very surprised if this usenet exchange we're having doesn't
outlast both of us.

Absolutely agree on those two.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, , http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
RKBA: http://noguns-nomoney.com/ http://www.dd-b.net/carry/
Pics: http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/ http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/
Dragaera/Steven Brust: http://dragaera.info/

timeOday wrote:

5.25" disks were never in widespread usage
compared to CDs today.

That's just flat out incorrect. For many years,
5.25" mini-floppy disks were the main means
of distribution of software. It's all you could
purchase on the commercial market when 8"
floppies went away and before 3.5" micro-
minis became popular. Wordstar, Liesure Suit
Larry and GW BASIC were distributed on
5.25" mini-floppies. So were 1-2-3 and every
other app from that era you can name.

If you mean quantity as opposed to market
share, well, that's true but meaningless. If you
had data or applications during that period, it
was on 5.25" mini-floppies, tape or a Winchester
HD.

If I were trying to preserve the US Constitution
or the Leaning tower of Pisa or gigabytes of data
from the Mars rovers, I agree that is a whole
different ballgame. Those artifacts are worth
millions of dollars.

Money isn't the only measure of worth. To me,
photos of my family are priceless, and I would like
to hand my children images of our family that they
can count on to remain usable. To a working press
photographer, his back catalog is precious, even
though on the market, it's not "worth millions."

I think the transition period for CDs (maybe it
has already begun) will be longer than for 3.5" disks,
which was much longer than for 5.25" disks, and
so on, because computers have become so ubiquitous,
and the need for improvement is decreasing.

That statement that is belied by the history of
technology which predicts an opposite course.
Remember the Patent Office director who
foresaw no further technological developments since
everything had already been invented? Look at the
history of the automobile. Convergence into an
aerodynamically similar shape was predicted just ten
years ago. What happened instead was a fracturing into
hundreds of model types, each with smaller market share.

You say CD is safe. A few years ago, industry analysts
were predicting that the 100MB Zip drive would be the
removable standard. Ubiquity guarantees nothing.
Even standardization guarantees nothing. What will the
format be for dual-layer DVDs? I'd be willing to bet
that when it's decided, it will become irrelevant because
a new optical storage method has come into use.

Here is what I do. I have two computers, and one
makes nightly backups to the other.

In what format? With what operating system and
backup application? Will they both remain usable
when XP goes away in a couple of years? MS backup
systems are notorious for lacking backward compatibility.
Use Ghost? Tried to restore from a five-year-old image?
Backup is a short-term safety practice, not an archiving
solution.

Periodically, I copy my data to CDs.

Ever had a CD delaminate on you? Do you store
them in a temp-hum controlled area and periodically
refresh them by copying? And in what format? What's
your plan to translate and pull forward existing data
when protocols change? Your plan must go far beyond
simple backup of existing file formats.

When I visit my parents, I take a copy of my backup
CDs and leave them there. I expect to switch to DVD
soon.

Using what format? Single layer straight data copy? How
long do you expect that hardware to remain active in
the market? Tried to find a computer with a micro-floppy
drive lately? Tried to use Zip disks at work? I'd bet that
in ten years, your backup CDs are unreadable from
age or lack of hardware/software to read them. Same
for DVD. If you don't have a refresh/pull-through plan,
your kids will inherit nothing from you but coasters.

Tech boards are full of requests from people trying
to read old manuals and docs created with obsolete
word processing programs (Wang) that can't be read
today. If they find someone with a copy of the software,
it's on a medium nobody has a drive for. If you don't
translate and pull forward periodically, you're left
behind and the data becomes unusable.

My wife puts prints of our favorite photos into scrapbooks

Inkjet prints? Or prints from the drugstore?
She using acid-free paper? What's in the adhesive?

- not all of them, but perhaps our favorite dozen or 20
photographs each year. As a whole, I think this system
is reasonable and I expect it to work, but my crystal ball
is no better than anybody else's.

I'd wager that your wife's scrapbooks -- assuming she's
not using home-printed photographs -- will be of use
to your children, but your CDs and DVDs will not.

You sound like a home user with limited needs (20
photos per year), and there's nothing wrong with that,
but you're scoffing without knowing that there are people
with far more serious demands than yours. A working pro
may have a library of hundreds of thousands of images on
storage and in formats that are at risk, and needs to have a
plan to convert and store those images so not to lose them.
He's not going to be interested in the advice of someone
who says "Just burn 'em on CDs, drop 'em off at the
parent's house and quit worrying."

A serious archiving plan must deal with formats, media,
hardware, translation, indexing and storage conditions.
Failing in any of those areas can result in loss of your
images. Your plan appears to deal with none of them,
and is therefore not a serious plan.

You also sound like a newcomer to this issue. Those
with a few decades of computer storage and archiving
experience under their belts take the problem far more
seriously than you do, because they've lost data and have
had to deal with all the issues you take so lightly.

Oh no !!! 8" floppies are gone ??? I still have
several boxes of them and the Double Sided Double
Density (1,2 megs !!) drives for them (maybe I'll start
a museum ??)

mikey

"Farga Palenga Jengis" wrote in message
news
timeOday wrote:

5.25" disks were never in widespread usage
compared to CDs today.

That's just flat out incorrect. For many years,
5.25" mini-floppy disks were the main means
of distribution of software. It's all you could
purchase on the commercial market when 8"
floppies went away and before 3.5" micro-
minis became popular. Wordstar, Liesure Suit
Larry and GW BASIC were distributed on
5.25" mini-floppies. So were 1-2-3 and every
other app from that era you can name.

If you mean quantity as opposed to market
share, well, that's true but meaningless. If you
had data or applications during that period, it
was on 5.25" mini-floppies, tape or a Winchester
HD.

If I were trying to preserve the US Constitution
or the Leaning tower of Pisa or gigabytes of data
from the Mars rovers, I agree that is a whole
different ballgame. Those artifacts are worth
millions of dollars.

Money isn't the only measure of worth. To me,
photos of my family are priceless, and I would like
to hand my children images of our family that they
can count on to remain usable. To a working press
photographer, his back catalog is precious, even
though on the market, it's not "worth millions."

I think the transition period for CDs (maybe it
has already begun) will be longer than for 3.5" disks,
which was much longer than for 5.25" disks, and
so on, because computers have become so ubiquitous,
and the need for improvement is decreasing.

That statement that is belied by the history of
technology which predicts an opposite course.
Remember the Patent Office director who
foresaw no further technological developments since
everything had already been invented? Look at the
history of the automobile. Convergence into an
aerodynamically similar shape was predicted just ten
years ago. What happened instead was a fracturing into
hundreds of model types, each with smaller market share.

You say CD is safe. A few years ago, industry analysts
were predicting that the 100MB Zip drive would be the
removable standard. Ubiquity guarantees nothing.
Even standardization guarantees nothing. What will the
format be for dual-layer DVDs? I'd be willing to bet
that when it's decided, it will become irrelevant because
a new optical storage method has come into use.

Here is what I do. I have two computers, and one
makes nightly backups to the other.

In what format? With what operating system and
backup application? Will they both remain usable
when XP goes away in a couple of years? MS backup
systems are notorious for lacking backward compatibility.
Use Ghost? Tried to restore from a five-year-old image?
Backup is a short-term safety practice, not an archiving
solution.

Periodically, I copy my data to CDs.

Ever had a CD delaminate on you? Do you store
them in a temp-hum controlled area and periodically
refresh them by copying? And in what format? What's
your plan to translate and pull forward existing data
when protocols change? Your plan must go far beyond
simple backup of existing file formats.

When I visit my parents, I take a copy of my backup
CDs and leave them there. I expect to switch to DVD
soon.

Using what format? Single layer straight data copy? How
long do you expect that hardware to remain active in
the market? Tried to find a computer with a micro-floppy
drive lately? Tried to use Zip disks at work? I'd bet that
in ten years, your backup CDs are unreadable from
age or lack of hardware/software to read them. Same
for DVD. If you don't have a refresh/pull-through plan,
your kids will inherit nothing from you but coasters.

Tech boards are full of requests from people trying
to read old manuals and docs created with obsolete
word processing programs (Wang) that can't be read
today. If they find someone with a copy of the software,
it's on a medium nobody has a drive for. If you don't
translate and pull forward periodically, you're left
behind and the data becomes unusable.

My wife puts prints of our favorite photos into scrapbooks

Inkjet prints? Or prints from the drugstore?
She using acid-free paper? What's in the adhesive?

- not all of them, but perhaps our favorite dozen or 20
photographs each year. As a whole, I think this system
is reasonable and I expect it to work, but my crystal ball
is no better than anybody else's.

I'd wager that your wife's scrapbooks -- assuming she's
not using home-printed photographs -- will be of use
to your children, but your CDs and DVDs will not.

You sound like a home user with limited needs (20
photos per year), and there's nothing wrong with that,
but you're scoffing without knowing that there are people
with far more serious demands than yours. A working pro
may have a library of hundreds of thousands of images on
storage and in formats that are at risk, and needs to have a
plan to convert and store those images so not to lose them.
He's not going to be interested in the advice of someone
who says "Just burn 'em on CDs, drop 'em off at the
parent's house and quit worrying."

A serious archiving plan must deal with formats, media,
hardware, translation, indexing and storage conditions.
Failing in any of those areas can result in loss of your
images. Your plan appears to deal with none of them,
and is therefore not a serious plan.

You also sound like a newcomer to this issue. Those
with a few decades of computer storage and archiving
experience under their belts take the problem far more
seriously than you do, because they've lost data and have
had to deal with all the issues you take so lightly.

Big Bill

I think he's working under some false impressions.
One of the worst is where he talks about the
development time and money needed to continue
to put CD reading capability into future DVD
drives. That's just wrong; the R&D's already been
done. It's just a matter of bringing *already present*
technology into the new DVD drives.

With respect, you don't know what you're talking
about. Keeping existing legacy technology in an
advancing product is a difficult and destructive
ball-and-chain around the ankle of development
engineers. Look at all the problems caused in Windows,
for example, trying to maintain DOS compatibility.
As DVDs go from single to dual-layer capability,
engineers would dearly love to drop the requirement
to be able to read CD data.

You can't just say "the R&D's been done." No, it
hasn't been done for every new track width and
velocity, every new rotational speed, every new
pit-and-land configuration, every new laser frequency.
Each time changes and advances are made in optical
storage technology, the engineers have to figure out
how they can squeeze a CD reader into the new box.

Sooner or later, and I predict sooner, like Redmond
finally shot DOS in the head with XP, Phillips and
Sony and Toshiba, et alia, will shoot CD in the head
and drop it in the dumpster.

What's keeping CD alive? Installed base? No, the
advantage to the manufacturers is in replacing the
installed base. Music? MP3 and on-line distribution
is killing the CD in the marketplace. It's not even
an efficient distribution medium anymore, since the
price of DVD has dropped below a dollar. Why
hold onto a 650MB medium when a 4.7GB medium
is almost as inexpensive? Software? It's already
distributed on DVD, and there's no advantage
to distributors in using CDs.

What's keeping CD alive is economics -- the
economics of replacement. As soon as enough
people have saved up to replace their CD drives
with DVD, and the computer makers have sold
enough computers with CD-DVD combos, and
then DVD alone, you'll see the balance tip and
wave bye-bye to CD. I'd predict about three years
before it starts to fall. Within six, it'll be gone.

Big Bill

I think he's working under some false impressions.
One of the worst is where he talks about the
development time and money needed to continue
to put CD reading capability into future DVD
drives. That's just wrong; the R&D's already been
done. It's just a matter of bringing *already present*
technology into the new DVD drives.

With respect, you don't know what you're talking
about. Keeping existing legacy technology in an
advancing product is a difficult and destructive
ball-and-chain around the ankle of development
engineers. Look at all the problems caused in Windows,
for example, trying to maintain DOS compatibility.
As DVDs go from single to dual-layer capability,
engineers would dearly love to drop the requirement
to be able to read CD data.

You can't just say "the R&D's been done." No, it
hasn't been done for every new track width and
velocity, every new rotational speed, every new
pit-and-land configuration, every new laser frequency.
Each time changes and advances are made in optical
storage technology, the engineers have to figure out
how they can squeeze a CD reader into the new box.

Sooner or later, and I predict sooner, like Redmond
finally shot DOS in the head with XP, Phillips and
Sony and Toshiba, et alia, will shoot CD in the head
and drop it in the dumpster.

What's keeping CD alive? Installed base? No, the
advantage to the manufacturers is in replacing the
installed base. Music? MP3 and on-line distribution
is killing the CD in the marketplace. It's not even
an efficient distribution medium anymore, since the
price of DVD has dropped below a dollar. Why
hold onto a 650MB medium when a 4.7GB medium
is almost as inexpensive? Software? It's already
distributed on DVD, and there's no advantage
to distributors in using CDs.

What's keeping CD alive is economics -- the
economics of replacement. As soon as enough
people have saved up to replace their CD drives
with DVD, and the computer makers have sold
enough computers with CD-DVD combos, and
then DVD alone, you'll see the balance tip and
wave bye-bye to CD. I'd predict about three years
before it starts to fall. Within six, it'll be gone.

Mike F wrote:

Oh no !!! 8" floppies are gone ??? I still have
several boxes of them and the Double Sided Double
Density (1,2 megs !!) drives for them (maybe I'll start
a museum ??)

Heh. That's the way to keep any technology available
-- store the media, the hardware, spare parts and
manuals. Just recently, I purged all my 8" and 5.25"
media and gear, and dumped almost all of my 3.5"
stuff. I kept a few software items and some blank
micro-floppies, but I fear it's a bit like putting lettuce
into the fridge that you don't want to toss after making
a salad. It's too good to discard -- I'll wait 'till it rots.

I've already dumped the Sparq (!), Zip and Peerless
gear. I have one Jaz drive left, and use it with fingers
crossed since I only have one.

Mike F wrote:

Oh no !!! 8" floppies are gone ??? I still have
several boxes of them and the Double Sided Double
Density (1,2 megs !!) drives for them (maybe I'll start
a museum ??)

Heh. That's the way to keep any technology available
-- store the media, the hardware, spare parts and
manuals. Just recently, I purged all my 8" and 5.25"
media and gear, and dumped almost all of my 3.5"
stuff. I kept a few software items and some blank
micro-floppies, but I fear it's a bit like putting lettuce
into the fridge that you don't want to toss after making
a salad. It's too good to discard -- I'll wait 'till it rots.

I've already dumped the Sparq (!), Zip and Peerless
gear. I have one Jaz drive left, and use it with fingers
crossed since I only have one.

Farga Palenga Jengis wrote:
Big Bill


I think he's working under some false impressions.
One of the worst is where he talks about the
development time and money needed to continue
to put CD reading capability into future DVD
drives. That's just wrong; the R&D's already been
done. It's just a matter of bringing *already present*
technology into the new DVD drives.


With respect, you don't know what you're talking
about. Keeping existing legacy technology in an
advancing product is a difficult and destructive
ball-and-chain around the ankle of development
engineers. Look at all the problems caused in Windows,
for example, trying to maintain DOS compatibility.
As DVDs go from single to dual-layer capability,
engineers would dearly love to drop the requirement
to be able to read CD data.

You can't just say "the R&D's been done." No, it
hasn't been done for every new track width and
velocity, every new rotational speed, every new
pit-and-land configuration, every new laser frequency.
Each time changes and advances are made in optical
storage technology, the engineers have to figure out
how they can squeeze a CD reader into the new box.

Sooner or later, and I predict sooner, like Redmond
finally shot DOS in the head with XP, Phillips and
Sony and Toshiba, et alia, will shoot CD in the head
and drop it in the dumpster.

What's keeping CD alive? Installed base? No, the
advantage to the manufacturers is in replacing the
installed base. Music? MP3 and on-line distribution
is killing the CD in the marketplace. It's not even
an efficient distribution medium anymore, since the
price of DVD has dropped below a dollar. Why
hold onto a 650MB medium when a 4.7GB medium
is almost as inexpensive? Software? It's already
distributed on DVD, and there's no advantage
to distributors in using CDs.

What's keeping CD alive is economics -- the
economics of replacement. As soon as enough
people have saved up to replace their CD drives
with DVD, and the computer makers have sold
enough computers with CD-DVD combos, and
then DVD alone, you'll see the balance tip and
wave bye-bye to CD. I'd predict about three years
before it starts to fall. Within six, it'll be gone.

Farga, I admire your fortitude, but you're doing your
very best to invent a solution for a problem that just
doesn't exist!

An example, if I may? You suggest (and I agree) that
CD's will die a slow death over the next few years.
Will not *everyone* who has a vested interest in data
stored on CD not copy it to DVD's sometime during that
few years?

Did you not (if you're old enough) copy your 5.25 360's to
3.5 720's before the 360's demise? Your 720's to 1.44's?
Your 1.44's to 650 meg CD's and then 700 meg CD's? And now
currently your CD's to data DVD's?

Did you not copy your vinyl records to cassettes? And now
your cassettes to CD's?

Did you not copy your beta video's to VHS? Your old 8mm movies
to DVD?

Will you not just keep going, regardless of the direction
that mass storage moves? Even when it *finally* moves
away from mechanical devices?

If you care enough, and your data is sufficiently worthwhile,
then it's easy.

The best of the holidays to you and to yours.

Ken

Ken Weitzel wrote:

Farga, I admire your fortitude, but you're doing your
very best to invent a solution for a problem that just
doesn't exist!

An example, if I may? You suggest (and I agree) that
CD's will die a slow death over the next few years.
Will not *everyone* who has a vested interest in data
stored on CD not copy it to DVD's sometime during that
few years?

Did you not (if you're old enough) copy your 5.25 360's to
3.5 720's before the 360's demise? Your 720's to 1.44's?
Your 1.44's to 650 meg CD's and then 700 meg CD's? And now
currently your CD's to data DVD's?

Did you not copy your vinyl records to cassettes? And now
your cassettes to CD's?

Did you not copy your beta video's to VHS? Your old
8mm movies to DVD?

Yes, but Bill suggested that CD technology could
easily be placed into DVD equipment, and that those
who suggest that's a technology drag were
blind to the fact that the R&D was already done.
My point was that CD technology is already obsolete,
and the difficulty is retaining backward compatibility.

As to the recopying of existing data onto new media,
yes, everyone does that, but that's not my point, either.
My point was that recopying, backing up and storage
are only part of an archiving solution. You must also
be prepared to translate or migrate formats that go
obsolete, and to index your data to make such a chore
possible, and obtain batch software to accomplish it.

You mention vinyl. I have LOTS of vinyl, and it is
simply not feasible for me to tape it -- who uses tape
anymore? It's difficult to find good metal tape anywhere.
It's not feasible to record it onto CD, either. So I'm
stuck with the vinyl. Some of my LPs aren't available
on CD or the (inferior) MP3. So I keep a turntable
and a stock of styli.

Suppose you just ignore your collection of older images
for a few years while tech marches on, and then go
back to work on your archival Canon RAW images,
only to find that the new RAW standard isn't compatible
with your archived images. Suppose this is in 2015,
not an unreasonable scenario.

It's not enough to just have the data on a medium that
is readable by your hardware. It has to be compatible
with your software as well.

If you have ever gone to the trouble of rerecording
analog Hi-8 video to MiniDV (I have), you know
what a major pain that is, and how time consuming.

I have also converted 16mm film to VHS, then to MiniDV.

The loss of quality from analog to digital is great. Factor
in the time involved, the expense, and many people will
simply not do this chore, and lose their data.

Will you not just keep going, regardless of the direction
that mass storage moves? Even when it *finally* moves
away from mechanical devices?

Because, as I've stated, it's not just having the data available
that is the archivist's problem. It's being able also to use the
data. Can you handle old Lotus PIC files today, from archived
spreadsheets? How about PCX files? There are dozens of
graphics formats that I have in my existing archived data that
I doubt I could even view today, much less manipulate.

If you care enough, and your data is sufficiently worthwhile,
then it's easy.

No, it's far from easy. It's very difficult. In order to truly archive
all your data, you must routinely examine the entire index for
formats that are marginal, translate them (if you can) into current
standard forms, and re-archive them in multiple locations. This
takes time, knowledge and skill. In library science, this is called
"reading the shelf." Fail to do that, and you risk losing data
accessibility for a portion of your collection due to obsolescence.

Again, I'm not necessarily talking about the average home user
with a few shoebox JPGs, but working pros and technicians
dealing with thousands of images and the associated text, sound
and log files.

The best of the holidays to you and to yours.

And to you and yours! Keep warm.

Don Lathrop wrote:

Hi Don...

snip

Replying to a portion of your message - perhaps a bit
off topic for which I apologize to the others...

You mention vinyl. I have LOTS of vinyl, and it is
simply not feasible for me to tape it -- who uses tape
anymore? It's difficult to find good metal tape anywhere.
It's not feasible to record it onto CD, either. So I'm
stuck with the vinyl. Some of my LPs aren't available
on CD or the (inferior) MP3. So I keep a turntable
and a stock of styli.

Don, I too have a large collection of old records - even
a couple of old shellac 78's. And old 45's. I've copied
them all to CD's, and am very pleased with the results.
If you can hear/don't like the compression aspects
of mp3, you can even do it uncompressed.

If you'd like to consider taking the task on yourself,
feel free to mail me; I'll be more than happy to share
what I've learned.

Take care.

Ken