from a friend - -
----
I have invested a lot of time and effort in creating a folder
of all my photos over the years, currently ~16,000 occupying 10.7Gb on my
hard disk.
Having learned the lesson the hard way, I have backed them up on DVD's.
Since each DVD will only hold 4.7Gb, I have to split up the folder to do
this.
I know there are flash drives available that will go to 32Gb,
and I think now even 64Gb.
My question:
Is it "okay" to use a flash drive as an archival storage device?
Is it as stable as DVD's? As secure?
What if I store it in a "cool, dry place"?
What are your thoughts?
--
----------------------------------
"If everything seems to be going well,
you have obviously overlooked something." - Steven Wright
On Wed, 3 Sep 2008 22:11:00 -0500, "ps56k"
<pschuman_no_spam_me@interserv.com> wrote:
>from a friend - -
>----
>I have invested a lot of time and effort in creating a folder
>of all my photos over the years, currently ~16,000 occupying 10.7Gb on my
>hard disk.
>Having learned the lesson the hard way, I have backed them up on DVD's.
>
>Since each DVD will only hold 4.7Gb, I have to split up the folder to do
>this.
>
>I know there are flash drives available that will go to 32Gb,
>and I think now even 64Gb.
>
>My question:
>Is it "okay" to use a flash drive as an archival storage device?
>Is it as stable as DVD's? As secure?
>What if I store it in a "cool, dry place"?
>
>What are your thoughts?
With external hard drives selling for as little as they do, that's the
route I would go. I just purchased a 500 gig Seagate for $89.00. A
little more bulky than a flash drive, but a whole lot of room for
growth.
> from a friend - -
> ----
> I have invested a lot of time and effort in creating a folder of all my
> photos over the years, currently ~16,000 occupying 10.7Gb on my hard
> disk.
> Having learned the lesson the hard way, I have backed them up on DVD's.
>
> Since each DVD will only hold 4.7Gb, I have to split up the folder to do
> this.
>
> I know there are flash drives available that will go to 32Gb, and I
> think now even 64Gb.
>
> My question:
> Is it "okay" to use a flash drive as an archival storage device? Is it
> as stable as DVD's? As secure? What if I store it in a "cool, dry
> place"?
>
> What are your thoughts?
FWIW - I store mine on one computer; back them up to another computer;
keep a copy on an external USB device and then back up to DVD.
On Sep 3, 10:31*pm, ray <r...@zianet.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 03 Sep 2008 22:11:00 -0500, ps56k wrote:
> > from a friend - -
> > ----
> > I have invested a lot of time and effort in creating a folder of all my
> > photos over the years, currently ~16,000 occupying 10.7Gb on my hard
> > disk.
> > Having learned the lesson the hard way, I have backed them up on DVD's.
>
> > Since each DVD will only hold 4.7Gb, I have to split up the folder to do
> > this.
>
> > I know there are flash drives available that will go to 32Gb, and I
> > think now even 64Gb.
>
> > My question:
> > Is it "okay" to use a flash drive as an archival storage device? Is it
> > as stable as DVD's? *As secure? What if I store it in a "cool, dry
> > place"?
>
> > What are your thoughts?
>
> FWIW - I store mine on one computer; back them up to another computer;
> keep a copy on an external USB device and then back up to DVD.
In general, there are magnetic, optical and flash storage
Magnetic is like the old "tape", hard drive in computer (with moving
parts)
Optical is something like CD and DVD
Flash storage is like USB key, SD/MMC cards, etc (no moving part)
Someone said that Flash drive can store data for a long time. Hard
drive is subjected to magnet, and CD/DVD can scratch.
Most manufacturer mention about 2-10 years.
I stored my data in an external hard drive, as well as in DVDs. I made
a habit of doing this on a yearly basis, usually during the end year
holiday. When the new year comes, my computer hard drives are all
cleaned up and ready for all data to be stored for the coming year.
I bought high quality DVDs, with special coatings to prevent
scratching. It usually cost doubles of the regular DVD, but still
cheap. I do sometime concern that if you do not use the external hard
drive for a while, the moving portion may get rusty? or may stop
working in moist environment?
Flash storage like USB key is still expensive. I saw the 18 GB USB
stick for around $50. SD card's prices went down and you can get 4GB
for $10 now on special sale.
"ps56k" <pschuman_no_spam_me@interserv.com> wrote in message
news:7lIvk.20511$mh5.10861@nlpi067.nbdc.sbc.com...
> from a friend - -
> ----
> I have invested a lot of time and effort in creating a folder
> of all my photos over the years, currently ~16,000 occupying 10.7Gb on my
> hard disk.
> Having learned the lesson the hard way, I have backed them up on DVD's.
>
> Since each DVD will only hold 4.7Gb, I have to split up the folder to do
> this.
>
> I know there are flash drives available that will go to 32Gb,
> and I think now even 64Gb.
>
> My question:
> Is it "okay" to use a flash drive as an archival storage device?
> Is it as stable as DVD's? As secure?
> What if I store it in a "cool, dry place"?
>
> What are your thoughts?
> --
> ----------------------------------
> "If everything seems to be going well,
> you have obviously overlooked something." - Steven Wright
>
>
what is this stability you talk of in regards to DVD :-)
FWIW you might get 10 years out of a burned DVD if your luck holds, or you
might only get 5, personally I prefer the HDD route as I have old HDD that
are as old as Methuselah that I can still pull all the info off, as a matter
of fact an old Seagate 850 meg drive that I bought new many many years ago
still spun up and divulged some old files for me not that long ago.
--
"Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color."
Don Hirschberg
> from a friend - -
> ----
> I have invested a lot of time and effort in creating a folder
> of all my photos over the years, currently ~16,000 occupying 10.7Gb on my
> hard disk.
> Having learned the lesson the hard way, I have backed them up on DVD's.
>
> Since each DVD will only hold 4.7Gb, I have to split up the folder to do
> this.
>
> I know there are flash drives available that will go to 32Gb,
> and I think now even 64Gb.
>
> My question:
> Is it "okay" to use a flash drive as an archival storage device?
> Is it as stable as DVD's? As secure?
> What if I store it in a "cool, dry place"?
>
> What are your thoughts?
That while hard drives do fail, you can get a *pair* of USB external
hard drives for less than one of those big flash drives (the big flash
drives being fairly new on the market) and do duplicate backups to those.
And I'm talking about a *lot* higher capacity hard drives than those flash
drives.
ps56k <pschuman_no_spam_me@interserv.com> wrote:
>from a friend - -
>----
>I have invested a lot of time and effort in creating a folder
>of all my photos over the years, currently ~16,000 occupying 10.7Gb on my
>hard disk.
>Having learned the lesson the hard way, I have backed them up on DVD's.
And doesn't THAT get real old?
>Since each DVD will only hold 4.7Gb, I have to split up the folder to do
>this.
>
>I know there are flash drives available that will go to 32Gb,
>and I think now even 64Gb.
>
>My question:
>Is it "okay" to use a flash drive as an archival storage device?
Nope. It's okay to use two for achiving.
>Is it as stable as DVD's? As secure?
>What if I store it in a "cool, dry place"?
I have two backup drives. One is connected to the computer at all
times and gets backups of changes every hour. The other lives in my
office at work and comes home once every 1-2 weeks to get an update.
The home backup drive is 750GB and the remote is 500GB. Cost for the
two drives was around $200.
What's notable about this scheme? It's automatic and I only have to
remember to do something once every other week. Backups that are too
much work don't get done and aren't worth anything.
You can use flash memory but it's way more expensive. Check on the
number of write cycles the memory can handle.
On Wed, 3 Sep 2008 22:11:00 -0500, "ps56k"
<pschuman_no_spam_me@interserv.com> wrote:
>from a friend - -
>----
>I have invested a lot of time and effort in creating a folder
>of all my photos over the years, currently ~16,000 occupying 10.7Gb on my
>hard disk.
>Having learned the lesson the hard way, I have backed them up on DVD's.
>
>Since each DVD will only hold 4.7Gb, I have to split up the folder to do
>this.
>
>I know there are flash drives available that will go to 32Gb,
>and I think now even 64Gb.
>
>My question:
>Is it "okay" to use a flash drive as an archival storage device?
>Is it as stable as DVD's? As secure?
>What if I store it in a "cool, dry place"?
>
>What are your thoughts?
I too archive on a hard drive and have been doing that for at least a
couple of years. It is just too complicated to use DVDs for the amount
of data I have (more than 100 GB), and DVDs are unreliable.
I have a big main drive inside the computer, and a USB-connected
external drive (750 GB). All my files are mirrored to the external
drive. The latter drive is usually turned off, which should extend its
life for many years.
After a shoot, I transfer the contents of my memory card to the main
drive. Before formatting the card, I turn on the external drive and
transfer all the new pic files from the main drive to the external
drive. I use a simple DOS batch file to do this. It has only two
lines:
This command only copies files whose archive bit has been set, thus
only new additions.
This maintains a near-exact copy on the external drive -- near, not
exact, because sometimes I will change some file names, do lossless
JPG operations, etc., and other things happen too, that over time
cause differences to appear. To fix these, I use the program
FolderMatch (free download) to get the contents synced again.
On Sep 3, 11:11*pm, "ps56k" <pschuman_no_spam...@interserv.com> wrote:
> from a friend - -
> ----
> I have invested a lot of time and effort in creating a folder
> of all my photos over the years, currently ~16,000 occupying 10.7Gb on my
> hard disk.
I always have to wonder how anyone (other than a professional) can
need to save 16,000 images. I suspect that if you would thin them
out, keeping only the best or most important, down to say one or two
thousand, the quality level would greatly increase with no loose of
diversity and that you would find it much easier to find that best
photo of this or that.
jmeehan@columbus.rr.com wrote:
> On Sep 3, 11:11 pm, "ps56k" <pschuman_no_spam...@interserv.com> wrote:
>> from a friend - -
>> ----
>> I have invested a lot of time and effort in creating a folder
>> of all my photos over the years, currently ~16,000 occupying 10.7Gb on my
>> hard disk.
>
> I always have to wonder how anyone (other than a professional) can
> need to save 16,000 images. I suspect that if you would thin them
> out, keeping only the best or most important, down to say one or two
> thousand, the quality level would greatly increase with no loose of
> diversity and that you would find it much easier to find that best
> photo of this or that.
I am not a professional photographer, but have been taking picture since
about 2000. I am also into genealogy. I am in the process of copying
my mother's picture so they can be shared between my brothers. When
that is done I have my wife's mother's pictures.
I have about 10000 pictures currently plus all of the scanned images
that I have collected in my genealogy research. 16000 pictures does
not seem that much for some one who was really involved with photograph.
archiving of digital photos 
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