long-term storage for digital photos, videos etc

In article , J.Albert
wrote:

Are CDs/DVDs the best option for long-term storage? Or is there
something better today? Most important is permanence, but with
several hundred photos per batch, one DVD is not big enough if the
RAW files are included as well.

For optical media, you might consider M-DISC's.

They're claimed to have a life of hundreds of years, because
they don't use "dyes" in the recording process, but rather
some inorganic compound.

optical discs of any type are a pain in the ass and obsolete.

If you needed more space than a DVD offers, get Bluray which
offers 25gb and 50gb capacities. Also available in M-DISC.

50 gb is tiny. today's hard drives are 100x bigger. nases are 1000x
bigger.

for example, you'd need 160 50 gb discs to back up an 8tb drive, and
that's assuming each disc is filled to capacity, which is unlikely.

a more realistic estimate would be around 200 discs, plus the time and
hassle to burn them all, the space to keep them all, as well as keeping
track of which disc has what files.

it's completely impractical. good luck updating specific discs every
time you change a file.

meanwhile, backing up an 8tb drive to another 8tb drive be done
completely unattended in several hours. run it overnight and it's done
when you wake up. incremental backups take just minutes. everything can
be automated. set it and forget it.

"Whisky-dave" wrote

| With all these hurricans and bomb cyclons etc, I'm not sure if even a HD
would survive let alone optical media even if it was M-Disc.
|
I can confirm it. I spent yesterday shoveling out from
the "bomb cyclone". (Formerly known as a northeaster,
a blizzard, or even just a snowstorm, before the local
news "Storm Team" marketing machines got going. Now
it's an all day news event with a new technial term to
name it with every 3rd storm. "Hi, Amaka, what can you
tell us from Main St.?" "Hi, Chandela and Immaculata.
As you can see, there's almost a coating here and the
breeze is picking up. If this cyclonic isobaric boombox
clusterbomb is anything like the one we're planning to
report today, it's going to be a doozie. FEMA is warning
that people should stay inside if possible and avoid
walking in front of plows if you must go out.")

My hard disks are all fine. And I didn't even take
your advice to rebolt chandeliers.

I do wonder, though, about the life of hard disks.
I use old ones for backup. They're sitting there. I
may as well use them. But I don't depend on them.
I consider the physical, non-magnetic storage of
an optical disk with no moving parts to be a much
safer bet. Then again, I don't put sand in my DVD
drive. That might be part of the problem you're
having with them. Try not shaking out your beach
towel in the same room where you store your backup.

In article , Mayayana
wrote:

I do wonder, though, about the life of hard disks.
I use old ones for backup. They're sitting there. I
may as well use them. But I don't depend on them.
I consider the physical, non-magnetic storage of
an optical disk with no moving parts to be a much
safer bet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_rot
Disc rot is a phrase describing the tendency of CD or DVD or other
optical discs to become unreadable due to physical or chemical
deterioration. The causes of this effect vary from oxidation of the
reflective layer, to physical scuffing and abrasion of disc surfaces
or edges, including visible scratches, to other kinds of reactions
with contaminants, to ultra-violet light damage and de-bonding of the
adhesive used to adhere the layers of the disc together.

Per Mayayana:
I do wonder, though, about the life of hard disks.
I use old ones for backup. They're sitting there. I
may as well use them.

Another aspect of hard disk failure is a bad USB port that fries drives as
they are connected.

Been there, done that - destroyed 3 backup drives before it dawned on me that
a card in my PC was doing the damage.

One more reason for offsite storage: gives me some time to think things
through instead of just mounting the next drive.
--
Pete Cresswell

In article ,
(PeteCresswell) wrote:

Another aspect of hard disk failure is a bad USB port that fries drives as
they are connected.

it might fry the usb bridge, but not the actual drive.

put the drive into a new enclosure and party on.

Been there, done that - destroyed 3 backup drives before it dawned on me that
a card in my PC was doing the damage.

get a better computer, one that has usb ports on the logic board and
doesn't need an additional card.

One more reason for offsite storage: gives me some time to think things
through instead of just mounting the next drive.

or a nas.

On 2018-01-05 08:58, nospam wrote:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_rot
Disc rot is a phrase describing the tendency of CD or DVD or other
optical discs to become unreadable due to physical or chemical
deterioration. The causes of this effect vary from oxidation of the
reflective layer, to physical scuffing and abrasion of disc surfaces
or edges, including visible scratches, to other kinds of reactions
with contaminants, to ultra-violet light damage and de-bonding of the
adhesive used to adhere the layers of the disc together.

I store ordinary CD/DVD's according to the basic conservation principles
of cool, dark and dry - not to mention in competent mechanical storage
(aka: cases).

I re-burn data after 5 years (although I'm a year late on some discs).
I have discs that are well over 10 years that read fine. But I only
have a few reference files with hashed checksums on paper to be
absolutely sure.

I keep pledging to buy "gold" based discs but never get around to it.

In similar conditions of cool, dark and dry the data will outlive me by
a very long yard - not that I'll care.

--
“When it is all said and done, there are approximately 94 million
full-time workers in private industry paying taxes to support 102
million non-workers and 21 million government workers.
In what world does this represent a strong job market?�
..Jim Quinn

"nospam" wrote

| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_rot
| Disc rot is a phrase describing the tendency of CD or DVD or other
| optical discs to become unreadable due to physical or chemical
| deterioration.

All I can say is that I haven't seen it. I've never
had a disk fail. You can do as you see fit.

I think backup is one of those things where peoples'
opinions and preferences vary. The main thing is
how you answer two questions:

* What happens if your computer is stolen today?

* What happens if your house burns down?

And these days maybe a 3rd question:

* What happens if your cloud backup totally
fails?

If you can answer those questions to your own
satisfaction then your backup is OK. Let other people
make their own decisions.

In article , Mayayana
wrote:


| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_rot
| Disc rot is a phrase describing the tendency of CD or DVD or other
| optical discs to become unreadable due to physical or chemical
| deterioration.

All I can say is that I haven't seen it. I've never
had a disk fail. You can do as you see fit.

buy two lottery tickets.

"nospam" wrote

| All I can say is that I haven't seen it. I've never
| had a disk fail. You can do as you see fit.
|
| buy two lottery tickets.

Sure. That's a good idea if your answer to the
questions about losing your computer, backup
and cloud backup is "I couldn't care less".

To each their own. You might even make
some money in the deal if you buy lottery tickets.

In article , Mayayana
wrote:

| All I can say is that I haven't seen it. I've never
| had a disk fail. You can do as you see fit.
|
| buy two lottery tickets.

Sure. That's a good idea if your answer to the
questions about losing your computer, backup
and cloud backup is "I couldn't care less".

the chances of *all* of those happening *at* *the* *same* *time is
*far* less likely than winning the lottery jackpot.

anything other than *all* three happening at the same time results in
no data being lost. *zero*.

you also neglected to mention the destruction of earth from a nuclear
holocaust in your doom & gloom. in that case, it doesn't matter if data
survives or not.

To each their own. You might even make
some money in the deal if you buy lottery tickets.

not only do you *not* understand backup strategies, but as usual, you
aren't interested in discussing anything.

there are two types of people in this world:
those who have lost data and those who will lose data.