Do you archive your photos / videos to DVD?

Everything else seems to decay. Even DVD's decay, but the M-Disc is pretty archival. Hard drives seem to lose magnetism over time and the data needs to be re-written to a new part of the drive. The new solid state drives are supposedly very bad for uncharged storage and need to be charged often. I read they may only hold data for a few months or a year without a charge. LTO tape is magnetic based, so it may suffer the same as hard drives with magnetic decay.

 

I was told flash cards are good for 10 years with no charge, but have not tested it. I've tested SD flash cards and they hold the data at least for 5 years with no charge. And unless something is actually tested and tested well, all this is hearsay.

 

The general consensus is to just keep transferring the data to newer and newer forms of storage. But sooner or later you lose something in the translation or something gets left out. It is nice to be able to archive something finally and for the archival record without fears of decay.

 

They got crystal storage, as in laser engraved synthetic quartz, that is very good. But even after 10 years of development they wont come out with it for the general public. And when I say very good, I'm just reading about what they say, I have no experience with crystal storage. Who knows, maybe the crystal drive would cost $10K? For now if you want anything archival and digital, it is the M-Disc.

 

I'm currently finishing up testing a huge group of optical media. About 85% of tests are done, but still have a few stragglers to complete. The original Millenniata M-Disc is very impressive. It survived a year in the sun with no issues whatever, whereas a normal organic based DVD dies in +/- 26 days of sun and a MAM gold DVD lasted only +/- 36 days in the sun. It does not matter if Taiyo-Yuden, AZO or what. If it is organic...the sun will destroy it in short order.

 

The discontinued original Kodak 100 year gold discs were the best DVD I have tested that is not a M-Disc. The Kodak gold were much better than the current MAM gold disc. The Kodak gold disc lasted +/- 55 days of sun.

 

People nowadays rave about the cloud. Well as soon as your account is 30 days in arrears they delete all your data, photos and videos. And who is going to find it in time to archive when you're gone?

 

There is nothing like having something physical...archival.

 

 

At present, there's no good solution for long-time digital storage. I use multiple portable hard drives stored in different locations. DVDs lack enough capacity for large archives (like mine). Flash memory does indeed lose its charge over time, which varies from months to years, depending on the transistor size and environmental factors. Generally speaking, the higher the capacity of a USB thumb drive or SSD, the smaller the transistors, so the sooner they dissipate their charge. Some new technologies promise stable long-term storage, but they're not commercially available yet.

 

Until then, multiple hard drives stored in different locations are the best compromise. Cloud storage is a good backup if the provider is reliable and if you pay for a year or more in advance to prevent your account from being deleted. If you want your heirs to inherit the archive, store a copy of your username and password with your will.

I have backups on flash drives, DVD and plug-in disk drive. Nothing is permanent. There's also a lot to be said for a good archival print, though I don't know if even the best can be compared with a properly processed black and white silver print. Want permanent color? Make separations!

Yes. I also archive to external hard drive. Every egg has a copy in more than one basket.

Print your best photos, enlarged, and gift them to neighbors and friends and relatives, framed, ready to hang on their walls. It will be greatly appreciated and you'll be thanked every time you visit, while you are alive. These will stay on their walls and maybe passed down. The rest of the stuff that you saved no one will care about anyway. Who's going to go through all that crap? You're not Henri Cartier Bresson, are you. :)

Backup to multiple drives and locations (and cloud), rotate on a 'regular basis'.

This article addresses the topic:

 

https://www.howtogeek.com/660727/bit-rot-how-hard-drives-and-ssds-die-over-time/

 

Pretty much echoes digitaldog's advice.

For a while I was backing up photos to Blue Ray discs (25 GB), which hold 5 times as much as a DVD. That doesn't work very well with 128 GB or larger cards all at one time. I make daily backups, even when I go crazy on vacation, which still takes 2-3 BD discs per day. I also use portable 4 TB drives on the road, and transfer them to a RAID server once home again. Everything gets backed up before I reformat the card.

 

Video is another story. An hour of ProRes422 HD (1080p60) requires about 200 GB, and I may use 3 cameras or more on a job . I record to 1 TB SSDs and transfer the video to an external hard drive for editing. I render edits to H.264 format, which I save on BD discs along with the audio and other files. I leave the original video on a hard drive, and hope for the best. A 16 MHz MP4 is good enough for most purposes if I don't need to do much editing. The masters are about 290 MHz with low compression.

Which video program do you use Ed?

I record directly to an Atomos Ninja V with a 1 TB SSD. I generally use ProRes422 as the codec, which gives me a little over 7 hours of recording time of 4,2,2 10-bit video. There are other options within ProRes which yield more or less recording time. DNx is another option, with similar quality and options. It takes about 15 minutes to upload 1 hour of video from the SSD to an external HD on my desk.

 

I edit in Adobe Premiere Pro CC on an iMac with an AMD Radeon video card (4 GB). I regularly edit 3 streams of 1080p60 ProRes422 video. Although the files are large, the codec requires much less processor time than highly compressed codecs recorded internally.

 

I just purchased a copy of Apple Final Cut X, but haven't had much time with it. Fortunately (unfortunately) I have a lot of extra time these days to spend on that project. FCPX can handle multi-stream ISO files with XML switching, recorded in an Atomos Shogun 7. Premiere Pro cannot read native XMLX files, but FCPX can create an XML file compatible with PPro.

 

I also have a free version of DaVinci Resolve. It has great color grading controls, but not significantly better than PPro. You need the paid version to do serious work, still far cheaper than PPro.

 

PPro allows me to compartmentalize projects within directories. FCPX and DVP have their own project-based filing scheme, which I find hard to work with (or around). I've been using PPro for over 15 years, so if you ask me how to do something, I have to watch what my fingers do on the keyboard.

 

Sorry for the long response. I guess I'm getting cabin fever. Hope it helps.

Edited March 19, 2020 by Ed_Ingold

Not a big optical disc fan and admittedly disorganized. Years ago I wrote CDs. A comparibly crude process probably demanding less precission than DVDs. For unknown reasons a client's machine wasn't able to decipher CDs written by one of my two.

DVDs would be OK, if I had enough edited work (JPEGs!) to fill awesome best off dics of mine. Otherwise I expect to be happier with a multiple dedicated data storage machines holding HDDs approach. Yes losses might happen but the land fill is expectexd to be my main heir.

I think it feels better to have direct access and an overview of what you have, than to face a DVDs collection holding 50+x% RAWs of pictures you'd like to delete now. YMMV but DVDs feel close to: "film cost through the backdoor" to me. I rather buy and replace terrabites that I can or could dedicate to stuff I'll still care about. But yeah, I'd look better, if I skipped lunches for DVDs.

I do still write some of my image files to DVD. However, my main backup is through Apple's Time Machine on solid-state devices. I also back up files to the now inexpensive 1TB HDs that are stored separately.

 

When, as all must do, I die, my works will be consigned "to the gnawing criticism of the mice" (Wir überließen das Manuskript der nagenden Kritik der Mäuse-Marx)

Edited March 20, 2020 by JDMvW