Photo storage on CD's

KAM

Good Evening all,
I visited my family in Texas this past week, and in conversation my stepmother mentioned that somewhere on either "The Today Show" or CNN there was a piece on digital photography storage on CD'S. She didn't hear the whole story as she was napping, but she did hear that perhaps pictures don't store well on CD's. Has anyone heard this on TV? I'm pretty new to this new passion and I do want to perserve all these photo's that I have taken and family pictures that I have scanned and saved on CD's. So, can I store photograph's on CD'S?:dunno
Kindest Regards,
KAM

P.S. This site is terrific and all the photo's are breath taking! BRAVO everyone! :clap

Bob Bell

I would have a million CD's so I will refer to DVD's which I use.

CD/DVD media doesn't have a determined life span as of yet. If you store them in cool dry lightsafe places they last longer.

The reason I mention DVD's is I end up with 3-8 gigs in 1 day of images. Today I took 412 of perching birds and cactus blooms.

Having 1 place for storage is far safer. I keep each day in a folder on a hard drive and I burn each folder onto at least 2 DVD's.

I think I just got a bad batch of DVD's so right now for the last 6 shooting days I only have 1 copy on DVD and 1 on Hard drive. I use different manufacturing plants media just in case.

Hope this helps

Hard drive space is cheap. Some time this week I am going to go price out another 500 gigs worth. Probably 2 external USB2 250gig drives.

I take somewhere around 10-15,000 images a year between commercial gigs and the fun stuff like photographing birds and mammals and the storage needs add up.

ScottMcLeod

Bob Bell wrote:

I would have a million CD's so I will refer to DVD's which I use.

CD/DVD media doesn't have a determined life span as of yet. If you store them in cool dry lightsafe places they last longer.

The reason I mention DVD's is I end up with 3-8 gigs in 1 day of images. Today I took 412 of perching birds and cactus blooms.

Having 1 place for storage is far safer. I keep each day in a folder on a hard drive and I burn each folder onto at least 2 DVD's.

I think I just got a bad batch of DVD's so right now for the last 6 shooting days I only have 1 copy on DVD and 1 on Hard drive. I use different manufacturing plants media just in case.

Hope this helps

Hard drive space is cheap. Some time this week I am going to go price out another 500 gigs worth. Probably 2 external USB2 250gig drives.

I take somewhere around 10-15,000 images a year between commercial gigs and the fun stuff like photographing birds and mammals and the storage needs add up.

Seconded.

I cranked out 22,000 shots last year.

I burn 2 copies of each disc, hoping that if one copy dies, the other won't be dead yet.

Normal DVD's last about 7-10 years (archival can last 15-25), according to our experts at Fuji, in optimal conditions.

DavidTO

I don't burn disks, I use hard drives as back up. Faster, more dependable, IMO. I supposed DVDs would be good for off-site storage, but I'm just not that paranoid. And if I was, I'd get a small drive and back up onto that. I just can't be bothered with burning media. Too slow and I don't trust it.

saurora

ScottMcLeod wrote:

Seconded.

I cranked out 22,000 shots last year.

I burn 2 copies of each disc, hoping that if one copy dies, the other won't be dead yet.

Normal DVD's last about 7-10 years (archival can last 15-25), according to our experts at Fuji, in optimal conditions.

If normal DVD's last 7-10 years, do you currently or in the future have any plans to possibly copy old DVDs to new DVD's... or would you just take your chances??? :uhoh

ScottMcLeod

saurora wrote:

If normal DVD's last 7-10 years, do you currently or in the future have any plans to possibly copy old DVDs to new DVD's... or would you just take your chances??? :uhoh

No, in about 5 years, i'll take a weekend and burn them to new media.

It's already on my long term calendar.

I'm also using a firewire harddrive, but I'm not sure how much I trust it.

David_S85

I burn them to DVD before I even look at them. The keepers and semi-keepers get copied to the HD.

I'm now using Taiyu Yuden 8x DVD's. About 60¢ each. These are the super grade dealies for archiving.

gus

I use smugmug . I store nothing at home so the house can burn...the computer can blow-up...the cd's & dvd's can fail but at the end of the day my photos are safe.

ultravox

Media storage lifespan...
According to the technical pages of several CD manufacturers and trade associations, estimates vary widely as to the expected longevity of the media:

• CD-ROMs are estimated to last anywhere from 30 to 200 years.
  
• CD-Rs, before they are recorded, have an estimated shelf life of five to ten years.
  
• CD-Rs, after recording, are estimated to last between 70 and 200 years.
  
• CD-RWs are expected to last at least 30 years.

but we can understand a good market strategy

Cheapo CD/DVD 1-5 years top and I can confirm that after 1+ year a brand one was a gonner , some v.good ones rated 80/100 years (24 caret gold film) but we can't check that .

BigAl

DavidTO wrote:

I don't burn disks, I use hard drives as back up. Faster, more dependable, IMO. I supposed DVDs would be good for off-site storage, but I'm just not that paranoid. And if I was, I'd get a small drive and back up onto that. I just can't be bothered with burning media. Too slow and I don't trust it.

I'd be wary of hard disks. I have several on a shelf which won't spin up anymore :uhoh

ultravox wrote:

CD-RWs are expected to last at least 30 years.

Don't believe this. Data on CD-RWs can start disappearing in as short a time as one month (especially with higher speed CD-RWs) because of the technology used. Don't trust CD-RWs for long term data storage.

ultravox

BigAl wrote:

I'd be wary of hard disks. I have several on a shelf which won't spin up anymore :uhoh


Don't believe this. Data on CD-RWs can start disappearing in as short a time as one month (especially with higher speed CD-RWs) because of the technology used. Don't trust CD-RWs for long term data storage.

but we can understand a good market strategy
3 dead HDD and still counting:D (1 BigBlue on my comp. and Western/Seag. on my son comp).

SpeshulEd

I'm an audio archivists (other hobby is taping concerts) and we too have this conversation quite a bit.

Taiyo Yuden cd's are about the best you can get. These are cds made in Japan that use a special dye on the disc. The dye is rated higher than other dyes. Many cds are made in Taiwan, usually those cds aren't rated that high. There used to be a certain level of quality that all cdrs were required to pass, however as time went on, those levels of quality have somewhat diminished.

(there's another brand of cdr, i think the brand is mitsui, i can't remember off hand, i just remember that they're extremely expensive)

DVD's are rated longer than cds, but are still iffy. The darker the dye on the back of the dvd, usually the better it is. Yaiyo Yuden also make dvds, however, the level of quality that dvdrs are required to pass are the same across the board, and most companies use the same dye still so the quality is pretty much the same. Usually the standard for dvdrs is if it works in your dvd rom drive, your dvd player, etc, your usually good to go.

Another thing I'd suggest is getting cdrs/dvdrs with a plastic coating on top, rather than just the silver tops. The silver tops will start to peel after a few years. The silver is actually the part of the disc that has the info on it, once that peels off, you lost your data. The discs with a plastic coating over the silver, usually last longer and don't peel as easily.

The lifespan of your media also depends a lot on how frequently you're using it, touching it, taking it in and out of its case, where you store it, etc. Many audio archivists try not to use those big 300 count cd book/cases either. They are generally not very good for discs. The best options are paper sleeves, or better yet plastic cases. Another good rule of thumb is to not write on the disc itself or stick anything on the disc. The marker or stickiness could eat away at the silver/plastic coating and destroy the disc over time.

If your plan is storing on a hard drive, i'd highly suggest using a raid type setup. If you don't want to go all out with a raid controller and whatnot, the easiest way to achieve budget raid security is to just have two hard drives and whatever you save on one, you save on the other. That way if one dies, you have copies on the other one as well.

I'd also highly suggest leaving your work in different areas. Maybe a copy on the computer, a copy on disc in your house, and then another copy somewhere else...be it smugmug, at a friends house, or in a safety deposit house. Even if you have several copies saved, if they're all at your house and your house burns, you just lost everything. And that'd be bad.

StevenV

got some time for reading?
see http://www.clir.org/PUBS/reports/pub121/contents.html,
http://www.itl.nist.gov/div895/carefordisc/CDandDVDCareandHandlingGuide.pdf,
http://www.itl.nist.gov/div895/carefordisc/disccare.html,
and http://www.itl.nist.gov/div895/gipwog/StabilityStudy.pdf

mercphoto

gus wrote:

I use smugmug .

Now there's another reason for me to continue my habit of shooting in large-fine-JPG only. Use Smugmug to backup my camera originals.

Hard drives fail, but they are only marginally more expensive than optical media, and an awful lot more convenient. Consider the effort required to make new copies of your old and aging DVD's, compared to a drag-and-drop copy of an old HD to a new HD.

SpeshulEd

another cool thing about hard drives...the files are always at your fingertips...no searching through a pile of discs.

Jeffro

mercphoto wrote:

Now there's another reason for me to continue my habit of shooting in large-fine-JPG only. Use Smugmug to backup my camera originals.

Hard drives fail, but they are only marginally more expensive than optical media, and an awful lot more convenient. Consider the effort required to make new copies of your old and aging DVD's, compared to a drag-and-drop copy of an old HD to a new HD.

I tell you it's (largeg-fine-jpg) not a bad habit.:D Either is this: SmugMug saves them, external hard drive saves them, and both keep them at your fingertips! And a CD/DVD is another option as well!

BigAl

mercphoto wrote:

Consider the effort required to make new copies of your old and aging DVD's, compared to a drag-and-drop copy of an old HD to a new HD.

Providing of course that you can access the drive Hard disks are notorious for not letting you know when they are going to stop spinning. At least when a CD drive stops spinning, you can just buy a new one and pop the CD in (and drag and drop its info to your hard disk )

colourbox

BigAl wrote:

Providing of course that you can access the drive Hard disks are notorious for not letting you know when they are going to stop spinning. At least when a CD drive stops spinning, you can just buy a new one and pop the CD in (and drag and drop its info to your hard disk )

No one should ever go the hard drive route with just one drive. You'll get what you deserve...eventually.

Anyone using a hard drive as a main library must have multiple drives with the same photos on all of them, kept up to date regularly. I've got three complete copies in different locations. Hard drives fail more than most media, but the chance of a second drive failing before the first can be replaced is small, though present. The chance of three drives failing before the first can be replaced and restored from either of the other two is nearly infinitesimal. Just don't connect all three at once, you raise your total wipeout risk substantially if something were to happen such as a static charge that fries something.

CDs/DVDs are still a good idea because what can happen to hard drives is a file can become corrupted and then you can unknowingly overwrite your good copies of that file during a backup. With CD/DVD, that's not supposed to happen, though we all hear about discs that go bad. My main problem with CDs/DVDs is updates. If I edit just one file on a disc, I have to re-burn the whole disk, or start tracking discs that contain incremental updates to other discs - no thanks, too many discs already. So I'll burn a CD/DVD if I'm pretty sure I'm done with a shoot, but the main library still lives on a hard disk for fast updating and backup. That's known as the difference between a backup and an archive. Backups should be fast and easy to write, access, and restore, but archives should be as permanent as possible.

KAM

CD's/DVD's and Hard Drives...keeps my head spinning!
To all:
Many thanks for all the great information that has been provided here. I hope that all of you are safe from bad weather, healthy and filled with joy. Keep taking those terrrific pictures and enjoy this day!
Kindest Regards and Respect to all,
KAM

mercphoto

BigAl wrote:

Providing of course that you can access the drive Hard disks are notorious for not letting you know when they are going to stop spinning. At least when a CD drive stops spinning, you can just buy a new one and pop the CD in (and drag and drop its info to your hard disk )

That's rather true about the abrupt failure of a hard disk. I just hate how slow it is to burn to DVD and the constant changing of blanks during a long backup. I think this is why services such as Photo Shelter are gaining some popularity, and why many are using Smugmug as a JPG back-up as well. Personal preference, but I'm going to go the SM route for back-up rather than DVD. Call me lazy.

SpeshulEd

mercphoto wrote:

That's rather true about the abrupt failure of a hard disk. I just hate how slow it is to burn to DVD and the constant changing of blanks during a long backup. I think this is why services such as Photo Shelter are gaining some popularity, and why many are using Smugmug as a JPG back-up as well. Personal preference, but I'm going to go the SM route for back-up rather than DVD. Call me lazy.

my dvd burner burns at 16x, usually only takes 10 minutes top to burn and verify a dvd. Thats not too bad.

If going the dvd route, I highly suggest using a checksum file, like an ".md5" to verify that nothing was corrupted in the burn. I know nero has a built in verify that I always use, but its still handy to have an md5 on the disc to scan in the future.

mercphoto

BigAl wrote:

Providing of course that you can access the drive Hard disks are notorious for not letting you know when they are going to stop spinning.

Well holy moly. I just had my first drive failure tonight. Not even two years old. Maxtor One-Touch FireWire external.

BigAl

mercphoto wrote:

Well holy moly. I just had my first drive failure tonight. Not even two years old. Maxtor One-Touch FireWire external.

:cry You have my sympathies - I hope the data was backed up!

mercphoto

BigAl wrote:

:cry You have my sympathies - I hope the data was backed up!

Not everything was, but anything I cared about was also on DVD.

badtz

Im one of the anal multiple hd backup types. 2 copies at home on seperate machines, third on a machine located elsewhere. I've had 1 HD fail on me in the time i've been here, everything I need backup up restored over gigabit lan in not long at all. Cheap hard disks are a wonderful thing.