storage of scanned images

[p_goldring]

Please could anyone advise the safest and cheapest way to store scanned images

(they are 130mb each)

am currently using an external hard drive but have read that they do sometimes

lose/corrupt information ?

many thanks

[dwight200]

Digital storage is a real problem. You can store files cheap or you can store them safe. CD's are cheap, but the cheap ones have a lifetime of only a few years. The archival quality CD's are significantly more expensive, but they last significantly longer. See http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm for a review of disk storage media.

 

External hard drives are the route a lot of people take. They're not perfect but they're easy. There is some concern that if they are not exercised occasionally they may not run a few years down the road. (How many years is a variable depending on the quality of the drive). Data can be recovered from a hard drive in which the motor failed, but if it's a real crash (read head contacting the recording surface) it's a bit more iffy. Failed drive recovery isn't cheap.

 

One of the best methods of keeping data safe is redundancy. Keep your data on more than one drive/storage medium. Keep the copies in different places so if your first storage place burns down there will be a copy in another place to recover your data from. Physical separation is key here. One at home and one at work or with a friend or relative, something like that.

 

None of the digital storage media will last a really long time. Eventually you won't be able to read the data from a disk because systems and standards have changed and the new computers won't be able to read the old disks. Like 8" floppies. Magnetic tape. That means that data storage is an active process. You have to keep refreshing the storage. Changing to new media standards as they develop.

 

Note that it doesn't matter what size the digital file is (as long as it fits on some sort of storage medium), you have the same problems insuring the longevity of the bits. This applies to your 100+MByte scans and your 100 byte important notes.

[Rene11664880918]

Hi there! The safest way is to have as many back ups as you can. I don't save any pictures in my lap top at all I just keep them for a couple of moths. I have everything backed up in Time Capsule (TimeMachine) Then I have 2 USB hard disks, 2 more pc's and DVD. And some times I think it is not enough but I don't know what else to do. Rene'

[will_daniel1]

Amen to redundancy. I backup to two separate USB drives. One gets a daily backup and stays with my main computer. The other is kept off-site. I put files on it once a week and return it to its off-site storage place. Also, every six months I back up to multiple sets of DVDs, and keep those stored at various off-site locations (my grown children's houses, for example). As a completely redundant, redundancy, I save the old DVDs after I make the semi-annual replacements.

 

I have done the same thing with my important family documents. I scanned them all into PDFs and back them up the same way as the photos, then shredded the documents. I may be anal about this, but I AM NOT going to lose that data. Period.

 

Will

[ronald_moravec1]

Film is the answer.

 

The quick lure of digital is very exciting and I love my D200, but know the problems exist. You will need to do maintenance.

 

My external has saved me once already from a windows machine that failed to boot up. Files have been put on quality CDs also.

 

One advantage of CDs is you can have storage in multiple locations.

One person wrote about his computer being stolen along with the external drive. Poof, everything gone

[bob_s__n.e._mass_]

This is a bit redundant with Dwight's response, but I keep the images on a large USB drive that's permanently "tethered" to one of the computers on my network. Then I bought two USB portable drives (very convenient- they're powered through the USB cable)- each smaller than a paperback book. I copied all images to both, then keep one at another location. When I add images to the "tethered" drive I copy the new images to the USB portable drive I keep at home and swap it with the one at the other location (to keep things straight I have a large label on each of the drives with the latest date of the copied filed on it.

 

Simple but safe- and the USB portable drives have gotten quite inexpensive- look for them on Amazon or buy.com, for example.

 

Hope this helps- Bob

 

And to all of you in the States- have a happy and thoughtful Memorial Day!

[Sanford]

You have to have at lease one off site storage place in case of home fire or theft. I use

dvd's in a safe deposit box at the bank. I'm old enough where longevity isn't a concern

anymore and I figure if sometime in the far future my work is discovered to be that of a

previously unknown photographic genius, technology will have found a way to restore it to

it's full, original glory.

[Ed_Ingold]

With the size of digital images these days, CDs are too small and even DVDs are "shrinking" relative to needs. Nonetheless, single-layer DVDs are probably the most effective and trouble-free means of archiving image files. Apocryphal tales of discs fading in a few years are simply not true - they were not recorded well nor properly checked from the get-go. I record thousands of CDs and DVDs a year (for business and archiving). With due diligence there are no problems, even with discs now recorded 15 years ago.

 

I use hard drives too, for speed and convenience. At this point I have over twenty external drives, including ten 500GB SATA drives. I also experience one or two drive failures a year. Without durable archives, this would be a disaster. Fortunately, these failures are hardly more than an inconvenience. Any disk drive, regardless of capacity, will be filled in no time with image files, as you must realize by now.

[Spearhead]

<i>Film is the answer. </i>In what way is "film the answer" to the question the poster asked, which is:<p><i>Please could anyone advise the safest and cheapest way to store scanned images</i>?<p>Forums lose their value when personal agendas are pursued regardless of the question asked.<p>Multiple storage types and locations are a good answer. I keep four copies, two on DVD and two on hard drives, and store two of those copies in a completely different part of the country where a tape backup is also made. It sounds expensive, but it really isn't compared to losing a single digital or film copy.

[ShunCheung]

As most pople have pointed out, redundancy is the key to digital file storage. I have 4+ copies of all of my digital images. I keep one set at my parents' house, and they live about 400 miles away. I visit them about 3 times a year. Ever time I go there, I bring new hard drivers with updated images and swap out the old ones.

 

I am sure what I am doing is an overkill. As long as you have 2 to 3 copies of everything, you should be quite safe, at least much safer than having only one original copy of your slides and negatives.

[will_daniel1]

Jeff, I don't think Ronald was pushing an agenda as much as he was advising to protect the negatives. That's how I interpreted it. And he's right. If you're talking about scanned images, protecting the negatives would indeed be the ideal ultimate solution. If you lose your digits, you can scan them again. I can relate to that. I have my 150-megabyte TIFF file of a scanned 35mm slide, and I also have the slide stored safely away.

 

Will

[tom_luongo1]

How many scans of 130mb each do you need to archive? Just a few or are you adding to you archive indefinitely?

 

You are probably talking about archiving a lot of images, but if you are only talking about saving a few, the answer is a bit different.

[p_goldring]

many thanks to all the replies

[tumble2113]

I use a hard drive and Carbonite, there are bunch of people like carbonite but I like them so far.

 

The drive keeps it local, and Carbonite keeps it redundant.

[bljkasfdljkasfdljskfa]

Keep in mind that tape backup is not recommended. Disks are cheaper, faster, and last longer than tapes nowadays. Redundancy is your friend. You can buy two disks and use them in a mirror configuration - RAID1. But keep a copy of the mirror backup up as well. All disks eventually fail.