Comments on: Digital Media Peril

By: Cousin Kirsten

Cousin Kirsten — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 22:38:02 +0000

I just read the perfect article in my “Professional Photographer” magazine that discussed many ways to prevent things like this from happening, I will scan the article and send it to you, it was something I had been looking for answers to as well, especially since I am a photographer and the need to protect photos is even more crucial. It listed and discussed a handful of products out there that stores and archives on and off location. I think you will enjoy the article.

By: Ann Marie Curling

Ann Marie Curling — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 20:13:30 +0000

This sounds simplistic, but the way that I backup my photos (and it keeps them nice and organized too) is I keep all of them both my my MySpace and Facebook accounts. Facebook even has a photo printing service so if you want to have them printed for people out of state you can have them done (in various sizes too) and shipped wherever you want to. Also, many of my friends on these services have also copied them to their accounts. But, I’ve also done the external hard drive thing, now I just need to get it stored away from here in case of the fire scenario.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 06:21:44 +0000

I actually would take it one step further from what someone said above and not only do copies of CDs and DVDs every few years, but also have hard copies (on paper) of at least the most important pictures. Servers can fail, hard drives can, too. Technology changes, and the burned CDs and DVDs degrade due to light, air, temperature, and humidity. The only really reliable medium that we know will outlive any of us is still good old fashioned paper! (Oh, now I see that someone just said this…so call this another vote for paper!)

By: Randy R.

Randy R. — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 00:26:54 +0000

I was once told a story that was supposed to have been true. The folks at JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) were driving the Voyager spacecraft past the outer planets, and wanted to document this onetime event completely. They recorded the incoming data stream every way they could. They used a line printer, 9 track tape, disk platters, 8 inch floppies, paper tape, using all recording media they could. Scientists could now study the information in multiple ways. But since time marches on, now the only way to reference the data is from the line-printer output. Nobody has 9 track tape player, disk platters, or an 8 inch diskette drive anymore. Sometimes just the good old printout or photograph – carefully stored – can still be a good bet. The permanent record of the Nephites was done by engraving. Does anybody think we’ve invented all the ways to digitally store things yet? I’ll bet we’ll have lots of new ways to loose our data in the future – if we’re not careful.

By: James Finnigan

James Finnigan — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 09:32:47 +0000

Doing backups is a huge pain – so it is often delayed. Nobody wants to end up without those important memories. In addition, as formats change you need to make sure that you move those files forward.

As I consider my family’s digital memories, I’ve decided that periodic backups are still necessary to protect against accidental deletion, but that there is no archival solution for digital content. The only real solution is to keep your files available on *current* storage in multiple locations (and not all at one site – think about a fire) and continue to move and update them to new formats. That .wmv or .mov file that uses a very old codec probably won’t even play on your grandkids computer (nobody would use those codecs anymore and code maintenance has a real cost – they will be removed from support).

For now, I’ve switched to using foldershare to sync my important files to two off-site computers. Sometimes I have reencoded video files to make them more compatible. It’s the best thing I’ve found so far and it’s peer to peer so I’m not worried about the service disappearing or having some inactivity policy that leads to the deletion of my files. If foldershare does get cancelled or become too expensive or some other concern that makes it undesirable, it’s not a problem – I’m the one storing those files in the various locations. Because foldershare keeps my storage locations in sync, I also make bi-annual backups of my photos/videos/financials to protect against deletion, etc.

I’m also planning to reencode a fair number of my videos as mp4 as I think that is going to be a good long-haul format for a while. I’m also keeping originals of the video to protect against gradual degradation by changing formats over time.

(Full disclosure: I work for Microsoft. However, that’s not why I use foldershare – it’s simply the best solution that I’m aware of. Of course, since I’m an engineer there are loads of improvements I would love to see. )

If there was a business that offered to do this for you, would you trust them enough to let them be your main store for those memories? I’m much more interested in software/a service that helps me do a better job of doing it myself.

By: Gary

Gary — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 13:41:58 +0000

I’m using a few different backup methods — external hard drives, DVDs, mozy.com, copies on multiple compters — but I need something better. In particular, of all the methods I use, only mozy is automated, and I’m not as good about running manual backups as I should be. Mozy, unfortunately, does have the 2 GB limit on free accounts and doesn’t have a client (yet?) for FreeBSD, so it only gets a few sets of files from my Powerbook.

While I was reading this post, though, it occurred to me that I have a couple of family members in different parts of the country who also use FreeBSD, or in a couple of cases Linux, and have reasonably decent internet connections. Maybe we should get together and set up rsync mirroring between our systems

By: Mike Heath

Mike Heath — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 17:20:09 +0000

This is a more difficult problem than a lot of people realize. Many of the suggestions I’m often given are to back up my digital media on an on-line site or backup to writable CD’s or DVD’s. The problem is, what happens if/when the on-line backup company goes out of business? What guarantee do we have the mozy.com will be around in 10, 15 or 50 years? It’s also important to remember that CDR’s don’t last forever: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-R#Optimal_storage_conditions_and_expected_lifespan

In 30 years when my kids come across my old RAID array or other digital storage, are they going to know what to do with it? Will they even realize that it contains countless pictures and hours of movie footage? I don’t think we yet have a viable long term storage mechanism for digital media.

By: James W. Anderson

James W. Anderson — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 04:59:07 +0000

For those who have concerns about how long a CD or DVD will last that you burn on your system, there is a big difference in archival media as far as how long it will last as well.

I’m using Mam-A (Mitsui) CDs and DVDs for music and even recording off-air some of the Church broadcasts or mp3 files, Mam-A/Mitsuit claims the discs will last 75 years. That’s because they use real gold and special dyes in the discs. Given the quality, they are more expensive (for reference, CDs about $1-1.50 each, DVDs about $2-3.50 apiece depending on where you get them) than regular discs (CDs very cheap, DVDs 50-cents-$1.25 each) but could be well worth the extra cost given they could last much longer.

Kodak made similar quality gold discs (there are imitators of both of these products, beware of those who just use the standard aluminum reflective backer made to look gold) but Kodak quit producing theirs several years back.

By: marcus

marcus — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 15:17:52 +0000

This has been a big concern of mine for years. Not just from a personal perspective, but from a history/family history perspective. With so much of our correspondence coming via email. Our posterity isn’t going to have anything to rely on to get to know us unless we take active steps to make hard copies of our digital correspondence.

I want to reiterate what Nathan said about relying on CDs or DVDs as your sole means of archiving. There was a Computer World Article about this very thing in January of 2006. If you’re relying on CDs at the very least make sure you have multiple copies of them stored in separate locations, and make new copies while you can still read them. I wouldn’t rely on burned DVDs as a long term storage medium, because they don’t last as long as CDs. Also, for CDs use QuickPar or some other application to create parity files and put them on the CD so you can potentially recover data if part of the CD is unreadable.

For photo backups I use KodakGallery.com. They allow you to store unlimited photos, indefinitely, as long as you make one purchase from them every 12 months. It really works well, because I can upload the photos, order some prints , so I have hard copies, and have the peace of mind knowing they are backed up in yet another location.

There are also several web site hosting companies out there offering ridiculous amounts of storage (300GB) for around $5/month. I certainly wouldn’t use such a company as my sole means of archiving, but as part of a backup system, I think it’s an economical choice.

By: Lee Donnahoo

Lee Donnahoo — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 20:27:35 +0000

To elaborate on what Joel said… The family he mentions above was affected by a wildfire and had literally 2 minutes warning to get out of their house in the early hours of the morning. You never know when such a disaster might strike. Modern technologies make it so much easier for us to make archival copies of rare/priceless/unreplacable family keepsakes. It’s a shame more people don’t use them.

The fire prompted me to start archiving our data using three methods (yes, I’m paranoid, but that’s my job):
1. Back up my data using an online backup service. This helps in the immediate restrore or system crash scenario. I like to use Carbonite.com but there are plenty of other services that range in pricing from free to expensive.
2. Online photo site: I have been a big fan of the online photo site flickr.com for quite some time. For a flat fee you get unlimited storage of photos and no size restrcitions (big plus on larger mega-pixel cameras).
3. Relativity: Every time we meet up with a relative from out of town I give them a “gift” of a DVD with all the photos I can fit on it plus an encrypted file with our financial, PAF, and other vital digital information. They get a DVD or all our recent photos and videos and I get a somewhat trusted source in the event of a major disaster. I use WinZip to compress and encrypt the sensitive files on the DVD.