Safest way to store photographs?

[Welderpaul]

We've got hundreds of photographs on our phones, laptops, FB, camera cards etc. Important photos we want to save. Laptops/phones/memory cards don't have a very long life these days and without some form of back up it is only a matter of time until they are lost.

Whats the safest method of storing these which is 'future proof' I'm thinking the best way is to print them all out?

Any ideas chaps?

 

[cumbriasteve]

Printing them allows you to browse and enjoy them, our local photo shop prints 400 photos off a memory stick for £25, sounds a lot of photos but I managed it easily.

Also worth copying them to a disc, seal it in a good envelope and put away in a cool dark place, worth doing a couple for important photo's

 

[Wozzaaah]

Hard drives are now so cheap there's really no reason not to have them stored on say two drives, keep one at home and one at work and you should never lose them.

 

[CRB]

External hard drive, NAS depending on the size of the accumulated files.

I went the NAS route and am now running out of space......again.

 

[eSCHEn]

However you do it take three copies and store them safely in three different physical locations. Home writable optical media (CDR, DVD, BluRay etc) is a poor choice as the dyes involved break down. Good quality hard drive or flash media would be my choice.

 

[Hitch]

I was wondering the same recently as it happens.
I can't somehow see my great grandchildren plugging in a USB stick or whatever in 100+ years time to view old photos.

I was handed a small box containing some old photographs, cabinet cards and such recently. All have withstood the test of time, some exceptionally well, despite being well over 100 years old. Working out who some of them are is the difficult/intersting bit.

Something I aim to do also, with actual photographs (people at least), is write names and years on the back.

 

[skotl]

Use an online backup company that's going to stick around. I use Mozy ($100 per year), which is owned by EMC (a $23billion revenue company).

 

[Wozzaaah]

However you do it take three copies and store them safely in three different physical locations. Home writable optical media (CDR, DVD, BluRay etc) is a poor choice as the dyes involved break down. Good quality hard drive or flash media would be my choice.

I've only ever bought cheap recordable CD and DVD media and some of mine are now over 10 years old and still read fine.

 

[Robotstar5]

NAS drive running in RAID 1 and cloud storage.

 

[eSCHEn]

I've only ever bought cheap recordable CD and DVD media and some of mine are now over 10 years old and still read fine.

I have some very similar as well. However, I also have many many more that have died much sooner and are now completely useless. I'm not saying that it always happens just that the technology used that allows that tiddly wee laser in the drive at home to make the pits also means that the media is a bit fragile.

 

[rtbcomp]

Share family photos with the rest of your family so if you lose yours someone else should have them.

Mine are on my everyday machine, copied to an old XP machine, copied to DropBox, copied to my tablet, copied to 2 USB sticks, one on my PC, the other on my router.

 

[Wendelspanswick]

Cloud storage for all my pictures with printed copies for my favourites.

 

[skotl]

I have some very similar as well. However, I also have many many more that have died much sooner and are now completely useless. I'm not saying that it always happens just that the technology used that allows that tiddly wee laser in the drive at home to make the pits also means that the media is a bit fragile.

Ditto that - I'd only use optical media as the 2nd or 3rd backup, definitely not as the primary.

 

[mr migwire]

500gb external drive and 4 local machines, all the pictures are mirrored on every machine so loose one and you can still get them from another etc, I also have quite a few hundered printed and in albums, I used decent ink and paper for the printing then decided asda are cheaper and better quality.

 

[julianf]

If you care about the data, use various different methods (does not really matter the specifics - just so long as you have multiples), and, most importantly, dont store them all in the same place.

 

[Wozzaaah]

I have some very similar as well. However, I also have many many more that have died much sooner and are now completely useless. I'm not saying that it always happens just that the technology used that allows that tiddly wee laser in the drive at home to make the pits also means that the media is a bit fragile.

I'm not saying rely on them but they've actually lasted far longer than I thought they ever would.

 

[mike os]

Only safe approach is multi media , multi copy

Optical media is good in that it is immune to virus and electrical issues, but can suffer from dye and physical damage
Hard disks are good, particularly if on a nas or separate device. .. different operating system adds another layer... but all are subject ti electrical and mechanical issues

Flash drives ... only real benefit is portability

Cloud storage is good but expensive and can still suffer from the same virus and electric or mechanical failures .... end of the day they are just hard drives located somewhere else.

So use all the above, use encryption. .. not only for security but to make them less susceptible to viruses.... AND CHECK THE DATA is ACCESSIBLE don't assume it works. .. check the contents of backup regularly, nothing worse than finding a backup is just garbage and so are the last 5 copies...

 

[eSCHEn]

I'm not saying rely on them but they've actually lasted far longer than I thought they ever would.

I've got some which must be getting on for 15 years and they're fine and dandy. Loaded a few up last year which were ~3years old and were utterly unreadable. Both decent brands and dyes and stored identically. Go figure

Actually the only difference I've found in good vs "bad" discs is in how many coasters you make when you burn and the maximum speed they'll burn at.

 

[the snooper]

Cloud storage for all my pictures with printed copies for my favourites.

i like woz have some discs over 16 years old still working, which I don't rely on, I made more copies years ago.
I wouldn't trust cloud storage hackers seem to like causing havoc what stops them deleting entire drives anything online isn't 100% secure

 

[Luke]

NAS drive running in RAID 1 and cloud storage.

This.

And print some out, or get them printed on canvas, or large format etc, put them up on the walls and enjoy them.

We realised we were taking hundreds of photos and keeping them digitial, rather than putting them up in the house, which kinda misses the point.