On a serious note: I make multipe backups to a Mac Time Machine backup, external backups locked away, and to offsite backups.
You can also convert the RAW files to DNG format if you are using Adobe Camera Raw to convert. That gives the RAW files in yet another format for future proofing.
How about using bluray discs?, that's how I stored about 250GB of RAW images (besides external drive), but I've read about images not been retrievable after sometime. I only use Sony BR discs. Please keep in mind I'm just a father with a camera, so my needs are not too big, but of course I want the images to last for at least a few years when technology can come up with something more reliable.
Thanks for the input.
Ariel70 wrote:
How about using bluray discs?, that's how I stored about 250GB of RAW images (besides external drive), but I've read about images not been retrievable after sometime. I only use Sony BR discs. Please keep in mind I'm just a father with a camera, so my needs are not too big, but of course I want the images to last for at least a few years when technology can come up with something more reliable.
Thanks for the input.
I don't know what BD disks cost over there, but over here its cheaper to buy hard drives and use them instead.
Ariel70 wrote:
How about using bluray discs?, that's how I stored about 250GB of RAW images (besides external drive), but I've read about images not been retrievable after sometime. I only use Sony BR discs. Please keep in mind I'm just a father with a camera, so my needs are not too big, but of course I want the images to last for at least a few years when technology can come up with something more reliable.
Thanks for the input.
I, personally, don't bother much with optical media for data backup anymore. The biggest issue I have is that it takes a while to burn discs, it takes a lot of space to store the discs, and read speeds aren't that great either. Moreover, the difference in cost between an HDD and optical media has been mostly marginal for a while now.
Just assume that whatever media you choose, bits will fall off after some time. Optical disk, magnetic disk, magnetic tape, etc. are all susceptible.
Active archiving is the only way to go. Passive archiving works for dead neutron stars isolated between galaxies. For everything else, impermanence is the way of all things. So don't fight impermanence directly head on. Go around it by redundancy and by active checking and migration.
Choose your backup (and archiving) media based on what minimizes (for you) a combination of labour cost and monetary cost.
Optical disks tend to be labour intensive because there is more binning (compartmentalization) of files due to the smaller capacities. Further, they have to be labelled and baby-sat while burning because burning is not fast enough to be near immediate and not slow enough that you can start another task. Sequential disk burning machines are very expensive, so you have insert, then burn, then take out, then label, then stack. Retrieval takes time to flip through the stack to find the right disk(s) and insert it (them).
Bare disk drives are the most economical for capacity and labour. Basic (non-portable) external drives are a close second.
I am not concerned much about my RAW files being readable in the future. I am pretty confident that even if Canon were to go bankrupt tomorrow and CR2 files were rendererd obsolete, software will still exist 30 years from now to let me access those files (if I haven't already converted everything to DNG first).
Heck, there are software emulators that allow me to play obsolete Atari 2600 video games on my computer that were created about 35 years ago. In the end, the information is digital. As long as the data is still there and not corrupted (see Monito's point above about active archiving) it's just a matter of a computer reading 0s and 1s.
(Of course, if we don't have computers in the future then all bets are off...)
I stopped using the optical media about 5 years ago, they became too small relative to the size of the files I wanted to back up, and then they just couldn't compete with the price of hard disks.
Not too worried about the ability to process RAW files going away, for reasons others have already touched on.
I'm obsessive about backups, and the backup disks are also stored in different places to protect from a catastrophic event.
