Another on storage.... I am only 27

[nasoj21]

I wanna know what happens in 20 years when you are trying to pull pictures of your family vacation for you sons wedding. Now you can bring in your slides have them scanned. Can you in 20 years bring in a dvd? Do the disks in your harddrive still turn? Does anyone hook up that ancient equipment and transfer it to a newer format?

Standard dvd's and cd's last about five years before chemicals break down.

Archival Blu ray at it's full potential? Maybe I believe that Blu Ray currently uses two layers and can hold 50gb but potentially it can be burned fine enough to hold 8 layers, and if the math holds true that would be..... 200gb 5 dvd's per terabyte. Not bad, if it ever happens and if they make them archival. And still, I am 27 no kids, no wife. Will there be any way for my pictures to be viewed in 30 years for my 25th wedding aniversary, or when my first clients die.

[JDArt]

What you will do is migrate your images to whichever storage media become the standard. It won't be so bad. You keep them on hard drives now and when holographic storage comes along, copy the stuff over.

[kevin_c]

In 20 years time I probably won't even remember I took photographs

As JD said, you simply keep your storage technology current. If you had loads of files on floppy disk you would have put them on CD years ago. Now you would be putting them on DVD or external HD.

JD - I like the sound of the 'holographic storage' - do you know something we don't...

[nasoj21]

Yeah I suppose. I think I might have an idea for a business out of all this stuff, cause I would love to pay someone to come in and organize and backup all my stuff.

[W.Smith]

Originally Posted by nasoj21

I wanna know what happens in 20 years when you are trying to pull pictures of your family vacation for you sons wedding. Now you can bring in your slides have them scanned. Can you in 20 years bring in a dvd? Do the disks in your harddrive still turn? Does anyone hook up that ancient equipment and transfer it to a newer format?

Standard dvd's and cd's last about five years before chemicals break down.

Archival Blu ray at it's full potential? Maybe I believe that Blu Ray currently uses two layers and can hold 50gb but potentially it can be burned fine enough to hold 8 layers, and if the math holds true that would be..... 200gb 5 dvd's per terabyte. Not bad, if it ever happens and if they make them archival. And still, I am 27 no kids, no wife. Will there be any way for my pictures to be viewed in 30 years for my 25th wedding aniversary, or when my first clients die.

Yes. IF you pay attention in the intervening time span. I burn new copies of my archival DVDs every 2 years, and trash the old ones.
If/when a new storage/archival format is introduced I transfer all my archives to that new technology. And so on, and so forth.

Proper archiving is painstaking work. And never ends.

[JDArt]

Originally Posted by kevin_c

JD - I like the sound of the 'holographic storage' - do you know something we don't...

Just that is appears to be the future of data storage:

Holographic data storage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Holographic data storage captures data using laser beams shining on photorefractive material. Creating holograms is achieved by means of two coherent beams of light split from one laser source, one being the reference beam and the other the signal beam. When both these beams interfere with one another, a resulting interference pattern is formed which encompasses the pattern both in amplitude and phase information of the two beams. When an appropriate photorefractive material is placed at the point of interference, the interference patterns are recorded inside the material. When the reference beam illuminates the material in the absence of the signal beam, the hologram causes the light to be diffracted in the same direction of the initial signal beam and all the information of the original signal beam is reconstructed.

IBM on the topic:

Holographic data storage

However, both magnetic and conventional optical data storage technologies, where individual bits are stored as distinct magnetic or optical changes on the surface of a recording medium, are approaching physical limits beyond which individual bits may be too small or too difficult to store. Storing information throughout the volume of a medium—not just on its surface—offers an intriguing high-capacity alternative. Holographic data storage is a volumetric approach which, although conceived decades ago, has made recent progress toward practicality with the appearance of lower-cost enabling technologies, significant results from longstanding research efforts, and progress in holographic recording materials.

[Johnny Perkka]

Originally Posted by nasoj21

Standard dvd's and cd's last about five years before chemicals break down.

Um, where is this "fact" coming from? I've got over 15 year old CD's that work fine

[W.Smith]

Originally Posted by Bill_Clinton

Um, where is this "fact" coming from? I've got over 15 year old CD's that work fine

I've got 4 year old CDs that don't!

[Mr. Pickles]

Originally Posted by W.Smith

I've got 4 year old CDs that don't!

Maybe why you copy yours to new every 2 years?

I myself, I got some old crap from 15 years ago that still works and I probably got some from 15 years ago that doesn't. I think storage is a 21st century scam and they are all in ka-hoots over it and got us by the ying yang...

[Johnny Perkka]

It's just that they got paper that has lasted 2000 years, and then they tell me that the "chemicals" fail on cd's.. It's friggin aluminium between plastic.. I think that when a cd fails, it's mostly because of incorrect handling. And as a dj I handle them pretty hardcore. So if they survive my use, then why wouldn't they survive locked in a safe in your parents attic?

I'm not saying you're wrong. My personal experience just says diffrent.

[Johnny Perkka]

Before someone rushes to correct me, this is from Wikipedia (don't you just love it?):

Recordable compact discs, CD-R's, are injection moulded with a "blank" data spiral. A photosensitive dye is then applied, after which the discs are metalized and lacquer coated. The write laser of the CD Recorder changes the color of the dye to allow the read laser of a standard CD Player to see the data as it would an injection moulded compact disc. The resulting discs can be read by most (but not all) CD-ROM drives and played in most (but not all) audio CD players.
CD-R recordings are designed to be permanent. Over time the dye's physical characteristics may change, however, causing read errors and data loss until the reading device cannot recover with error correction methods. The design life is from 20 to 100 years depending on the quality of the discs, the quality of the writing drive, and storage conditions. However, testing has demonstrated such degradation of some discs in as little as 18 months under normal storage conditions.This process is known as CD Rot


So, like I said, you are not wrong, but basically, if you really value what you store, why would you buy the cheapest s**t and leave it in the sun or whatever. Buy grade A stuff and store it properly, I mean come on..

[W.Smith]

Originally Posted by Mr. Pickles

Maybe why you copy yours to new every 2 years?

Exactly!

I myself, I got some old crap from 15 years ago that still works and I probably got some from 15 years ago that doesn't. I think storage is a 21st century scam and they are all in ka-hoots over it and got us by the ying yang...

Sure. But CD rot is still a reality we got to deal with.

[Johnny Perkka]

I agree. This single-serving attitude that is dominating pretty much everything is eating me from the inside. I mean you buy a car, and they expect you to use it for 5 years and buy a new one.. WTF? But I'm doing my personal rebellion and I'm still using my -89 Peugeot, and it works as good as new, no rust anywhere .. I'd like to see these latest Volvos, Fords, even Peugeots running in 20 years.. Damn. Now I'm pissed.

[JDArt]

Originally Posted by Bill_Clinton

I mean you buy a car, and they expect you to use it for 5 years and buy a new one.. WTF?

Who are "they"? And where did you come up with the 5-year figure?

My car is going on 13 years and shows no signs of giving up.

[Johnny Perkka]

By "they" I mean the automotive industry.. I allways thought it was the way things were going, but a few days ago there was a big economics discussion on radio, and "they" said it is the way of the future.. I think it is the way of capitalism..

But congrats, you, just like me, have an older car.. The saying "they don't make 'em like they used to" is so true.. But I love my car, so as long as I don't wreck it, I'm set for life

[nasoj21]

I figure the five year number probably came from the dealers of archival cd's and dvds. We sell them at work and that is our working number but I have heard it from "professional" scrapbookers also.

I am curious as to why you would redo archival dvds every 2 years they are rated at 300 years and they are about $4~$5 a piece.

[W.Smith]

Originally Posted by nasoj21

I am curious as to why you would redo archival dvds every 2 years

I take no chances with archives.

they are rated at 300 years and they are about $4~$5 a piece.

300 years? And you believe that? LOL! That's snake-oil, my friend.

Hey, I got a prime real estate location you should have a look at! Excellent investment! 300% return! Guaranteed! It has your name on it, m8!

[jfrancho]

I don't think that relying on one type of media that claims to be bullet proof is an acceptable form of archival. A good archival strategy will involve multi site redundancy, backups, and a routine DR drill. Multi site redundancy can be as simple as copying your archive to a USB HDD and storing it somewhere else, like a friend's house. Backing up your work to another storage media is a very good idea, especially for work in progress. Finally, a routine disaster recovery drill will prove the viability of both your back up and archival strategy.

[W.Smith]

Quite. Which is why I use a RAID configuration and duplicate sets of archival DVDs.

[nasoj21]

I am not so sure about the 300 but I would bet that if they say 300 then it will be at least 100, and it may not be 5 but I would believe 15 or 20.

And I know that there is a good chance I will be here in 20 and not so good past a hundred.

And though I am all about the redundancy, my question is what good is your hard drive that has not been turned on for 10 years

I suppose the best answer is continually updating storage formats over the years. I guess it may not be as much work as it sounds since storage continually gets bigger. In ten years a tera byte will probably be a fraction of what the big storage is.