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About 10 years ago, all of my family photos fit on one 8gig drive. When I retired this drive after years of use, I copied all of the pictures on this drive to a

About 10 years ago, all of my family photos fit on one 8gig drive. When I retired this drive after years of use, I copied all of the pictures on this drive to a dozen CD-R's. I put both on a shelf in my bedroom closet. 10 years on, 9 of 12 CD-Rs are unreadable or have substantial data loss. The hard disk is 14 years old. Every checksum is still correct. Hard disks were the best backup medium for the average consumer back then. They still are. Now they are super easy because they are USB. Put a 2.5" 1TB external USB in your safe deposit box. Your kids will love whats on it 20 years from now.

PythonicAlpha 11y ago
I agree, that hdds are still better, than the average optical media. But the reason is that the optical media are just crap today. When the CD was invented, they told us, they will hold life-long. Ok, CD-Rs/DVD-Rs are slightly different, but still it would be possible for them to be good after 40 years with still a reasonable price (I have no statistics, but I would say, that the TYs come rather near to this ideal). I did not want to go into a lengthy discussion about hdds and backup (and still don't want to). Just one thing: While some last really decades without trouble and are really great, it can well be that you have bought one that will just fail one day and than you are bust. While the price-tag of hdds is low today, it is not so low, that you would put four or five of them on your shelf just for backup (I might do in the future, but not yet now). For a good backup-strategy you should not rely on just one media (that can be destroyed by one single drop!). What also bothers me is, that currently only two or three real producers of hdds are left.
hga 11y ago
Except that I'll bet you didn't use Taiyo Yuden or equivalent quality discs. I have, first one batch of Kodak Golds 15 years ago, then Taiyo Yuden, and haven't yet suffered a data loss yet. Although now that my data has gotten large enough I'm using LTO tape backup.
- DanBC 11y ago
  Good quality discs, in tyvek sleeves, with no writing on the discs, stored in temperature and humidity and light controled environment: it's not trivial for people to achieve.
  - hga 11y ago
    Which company made the discs? ADDED: I see you aren't who started this sub-sub-thread. But I'd add that except for the environmental control, you don't have to go to great extremes, CD-Rs are physically rather robust. But you did/do have to do your research, to discover that you need to buy Taiyo Yuden or MAM-A media, and get discs from a reputable source (there was a lot of TY counterfeiting some time ago), and store them properly.
DanBC 11y ago
Will USB still be accessible in twenty years time? There's a niche in archival products for lots of redundant data (like PAR or PAR2) combined with backup duplication across geographical diversity. There's a German (I think) company offering very robust storage for 10 of your most treasured photos. It's expensive, but they claim to be offering many years archival (100 years? 50 years? (This was on a BBC Radio Four programme but sadly I have no idea how to get that programme or the name of the company.)

PythonicAlpha 11y ago

I agree, that hdds are still better, than the average optical media. But the reason is that the optical media are just crap today. When the CD was invented, they told us, they will hold life-long. Ok, CD-Rs/DVD-Rs are slightly different, but still it would be possible for them to be good after 40 years with still a reasonable price (I have no statistics, but I would say, that the TYs come rather near to this ideal). I did not want to go into a lengthy discussion about hdds and backup (and still don't want to). Just one thing: While some last really decades without trouble and are really great, it can well be that you have bought one that will just fail one day and than you are bust. While the price-tag of hdds is low today, it is not so low, that you would put four or five of them on your shelf just for backup (I might do in the future, but not yet now). For a good backup-strategy you should not rely on just one media (that can be destroyed by one single drop!). What also bothers me is, that currently only two or three real producers of hdds are left.

hga 11y ago

Except that I'll bet you didn't use Taiyo Yuden or equivalent quality discs. I have, first one batch of Kodak Golds 15 years ago, then Taiyo Yuden, and haven't yet suffered a data loss yet. Although now that my data has gotten large enough I'm using LTO tape backup.

DanBC 11y ago
Good quality discs, in tyvek sleeves, with no writing on the discs, stored in temperature and humidity and light controled environment: it's not trivial for people to achieve.
- hga 11y ago
  Which company made the discs? ADDED: I see you aren't who started this sub-sub-thread. But I'd add that except for the environmental control, you don't have to go to great extremes, CD-Rs are physically rather robust. But you did/do have to do your research, to discover that you need to buy Taiyo Yuden or MAM-A media, and get discs from a reputable source (there was a lot of TY counterfeiting some time ago), and store them properly.

DanBC 11y ago

Will USB still be accessible in twenty years time? There's a niche in archival products for lots of redundant data (like PAR or PAR2) combined with backup duplication across geographical diversity. There's a German (I think) company offering very robust storage for 10 of your most treasured photos. It's expensive, but they claim to be offering many years archival (100 years? 50 years? (This was on a BBC Radio Four programme but sadly I have no idea how to get that programme or the name of the company.)