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[bjsolem]

What are people doing for long term backup/archiving?

I'm talking about the 20-50 year timeframe than the 3-5 year lifespan of a cd-r.

This question would apply more to photos and digital video than mp3s and dvds.  With all the digital pictures I'm taking I want a way to put a copy of them somewhere and not have to think about them for a long time.  Like you could do with a family photo album in the analog world.

One suggestion is to copy a cdr onto a new cdr every 3 years, but what happens if you mess that up......

I print out a lot of the pictures and that is probably the safest method, but is there any way to keep the digital info?

At this point I'm not even going to worry about file formats being around down the road, I just want to know if someone has a good method for archiving thier digital data.

[RemyJ]

How about punch cards?  I've still got some from the 60's that are perfectly readable.  

Seriously, why not CD-R?  Good ones with heavy lacquer top coats should last for decades if they're not written on with nail polish and kept reasonably protected.

[bjsolem]

Seriously, why not CD-R?  Good ones with heavy lacquer top coats should last for decades if they're not written on with nail polish and kept reasonably protected.

I've heard numerous stories of early CDRs already failing.  Maybe it's just media hype, but it's not something that I feel like risking.....

[LisaRCT]

I just use my 35mm film camera . . .
I shoot a new picture of my hard drives every week.

 . . . hmmm, reminds me I need to get those developed someday.  

[xen-uno]

20 yrs maybe but 50 yrs? No archival method can promise that kind of longevity assuming your using the best (and most reasonable cost) method today for large data sets...which is tape. The media is one thing (magnetic tape can live long & prosper assuming it's kept clean, cool, dry, and out of sunlight), hardware is another. Would you be able to find a DAT drive in 10 years after your drive dies? Same with VHS (which can store ALOT of data). Pressed CD's/DVD's are long lived, and are really the ultimate backup for music/video, assuming you treat them as carefully as magnetic tape. You'll just have to maintain your archives...that is...move them onto new media/hardware before your current archiving method becomes obsolete.

All my media is on a Level 1 RAID array. I back the files up onto DVD's (I am very spotty on this...I may have 5% of my total media on DVD). I have most of the audio on factory pressed CD's, though.

10^-27

[jleerigby]

I back up all my data to a second hard drive in a removable caddy.  I do it about once a month.  If the second HDD fails I'll soon know about it as I use it every month so I would replace it straight away.  The originals would always be intact on my main system drive.  If they both fail I'll be feeling very very unlucky.

You should have no problem getting enough hard drives in your system to cope with your full library as HDD's are available in 250 GB or more these days and with a Raid array you could have maybe 6 or 8 of these all lined up together.

[zevele10]

Data cds brand Verba something- i do not remember the exact name-
But it sounds more like a brand of morning cereales than a brand of cdr

[LisaRCT]

Verbatim ??

[Nolonemo]

besoljm "I print out a lot of pictures"

That's probably the least safe way to archive anything, assuming you are printing out with a dye-based inkjet printer.  Dye fading is a serious problem with this medium.  

I say etch the digital data on solid gold disks like they did with the Pioneer spacecraft that's now travelling beyond the solar system.  

[zevele10]

Verbatim !
YES

[kiwi]

There were some magneto-optical (sp) drives that I used a few years ago that had 20+ year life spans.  They were moderately expensive, and a bit slow.  

We used them for archiving of medical images.

kiwi