Posted by Kate Silvia on September 4, 2010 at 2:45 PM
Are the Delkin (or any other brand you could suggest) gold DVD disks really worth the money for archival image storage? I've got an external hard drive and also typically save to disk, but I'm hearing that typical disks don't last very long. Is that true? Just looking for suggestions for long term storage. They would be used for my most precious RAW and Master Files.
Thanks in advance.
I don't back up to DVD's, so I can't comment on which brand would be best. If you are intent on doing this, it seems the best startegy would be to have the best disk you can afford, have a good DVD drive, and good software.
Personally, I back everything up on a drive on my network, an external drive and also on an internal drive. While it's true that drives will fail at some point, redundancy is helpful.
Back up schemes have been discussed here many times, with many and varied opinions. You might want to search this forum for those topics.
--P
Posted by conrad Rowe on September 5, 2010 at 1:12 AM
Disks are not the way to go for long term storage from what I have learned. Hard drives are better.
One thing I just recently learned is to store disks on edge not laying flat. I always thought disk were a good way for long term storage. Hard drives I believe are the best solution at this time. Conrad
Posted by Edward Mendes on September 7, 2010 at 5:40 PM
Hi Kate,
I personally don't think the Gold DVD's made by Delkin or any other manufacture are worth the extra money considering the speed at which media technology changes. I have normal CD's and DVD's that are almost 10 years old that still read fine. I believe I've read normal CD's and DVD's are good for at least 25 years if not much more before the materials may even start to break down.
I'd be willing to bet that your biggest problem with images backed up on DVD's today will be finding a DVD drive to retrieve those images in 25 years, not the deterioration of the data.
Conrad and Preston are correct when they say hard drives are the current standard in backup, however it is important to note that hard drives are magnetic devices with many moving parts and they WILL fail, that's true with every hard drive. I believe the best option for backing up your images are multi-fold, first keep back up the images on DVD's then have a multiple hard drives (2 or 3) on a RAID setup to mirror each other. That way when something is saved on hard drive one, it will automatically also be backed up on hard drive 2 and 3 as well. When new technology comes our to replace DVD's, CD's and Blu-Rays, then make new external backups with that as well.
That's my 2 cents. Good Luck!
Posted by David Bostedo on September 8, 2010 at 12:34 PM
I believe I've read normal CD's and DVD's are good for at least 25 years if not much more before the materials may even start to break down.
That depends Edward... degradation of data on writeable CDs and DVDs can occur very quickly - within a couple of years. Does it always? No. And if it does, does it actually ruin your files? Again, probably not. But it could, and that's what scares people. DVDs and CDs are OK for backup, but I'd want to have multiple copies. And it's a good idea to store them in different locations in case of fire or flood.
(Note I said writeable CDs/DVDs above. The material used in commercially produced movie DVDs and music CDs is not the same, since it can't be written to at home. These tend to last much longer.)
Discussion
4 repliesThanks in advance.
Personally, I back everything up on a drive on my network, an external drive and also on an internal drive. While it's true that drives will fail at some point, redundancy is helpful.
Back up schemes have been discussed here many times, with many and varied opinions. You might want to search this forum for those topics.
--P
One thing I just recently learned is to store disks on edge not laying flat. I always thought disk were a good way for long term storage. Hard drives I believe are the best solution at this time. Conrad
I personally don't think the Gold DVD's made by Delkin or any other manufacture are worth the extra money considering the speed at which media technology changes. I have normal CD's and DVD's that are almost 10 years old that still read fine. I believe I've read normal CD's and DVD's are good for at least 25 years if not much more before the materials may even start to break down.
I'd be willing to bet that your biggest problem with images backed up on DVD's today will be finding a DVD drive to retrieve those images in 25 years, not the deterioration of the data.
Conrad and Preston are correct when they say hard drives are the current standard in backup, however it is important to note that hard drives are magnetic devices with many moving parts and they WILL fail, that's true with every hard drive. I believe the best option for backing up your images are multi-fold, first keep back up the images on DVD's then have a multiple hard drives (2 or 3) on a RAID setup to mirror each other. That way when something is saved on hard drive one, it will automatically also be backed up on hard drive 2 and 3 as well. When new technology comes our to replace DVD's, CD's and Blu-Rays, then make new external backups with that as well.
That's my 2 cents. Good Luck!
That depends Edward... degradation of data on writeable CDs and DVDs can occur very quickly - within a couple of years. Does it always? No. And if it does, does it actually ruin your files? Again, probably not. But it could, and that's what scares people. DVDs and CDs are OK for backup, but I'd want to have multiple copies. And it's a good idea to store them in different locations in case of fire or flood.
(Note I said writeable CDs/DVDs above. The material used in commercially produced movie DVDs and music CDs is not the same, since it can't be written to at home. These tend to last much longer.)