Best medium to store pics and video

[Anonymous]

I have a lot of videos and pictures which I use with movieediting softwareto make my home videos more attractive. I am keeping everything in a 1TB external hard drive aware of the fact that it can fail some day. Are DVD’s a good option to keep the raw digital material? SD’s?

[Rob]

DVDs are a good option. as long as you store them safely, the data will be there for years.

[EarlC]

Rob is correct, to the extent that DVD has been around. The only potential “catch” to that is that the medium hasn’t been in play long enough to establish its true stability and shef life.

But, going on a wing and a prayer, I use a backup hard drive(s) exclusively dedicated to holding resources for repurposing, etc. AND burn everything I even THINK I want to keep on DVDs as well.

Beyond that, I don’t know what more could be done to preserve against loss of resources/materials. I am at the point now where I have so much reserve resources stuff I am considering another set of HD/DVD backups to store off site in the event of some “ultimate” catastrophe. Past THAT kind of redundancy I probably would need to check with a shrink to see if I am becoming overly paranoid. 🙂

Earl

[Coreece]

I would burn the DVD’s but also save them to the hard drive as well…if you can save them to an external that isn’t used that often, that would be cool too.

I worked for a company that had some insignificant data stored on dvd’s…The dvd’s were only4 years old andhad cyclic redundancy errors…we were not able to retrieve some of the data. This is unusual in such a short period of time, but it can happen.

cyclic redundacy errors are more common on cd’s but canalso appear on DVD’s.

Your DVD’s should last longer than 4 years…I’d say you should get at least8-10 years out of a “Burned” Data DVD. Pressed DVD’s practically last forever, but I don’t know anybody that has their own DVD press…

To get the best results:

-Update your dvd burner firmware (this can be downloaded at the manufacturer’s website)

-Burn the data at a slower rate…4x or 6x

-store in a cool dry place.

-If you want…re-burn the DVD’s every 5-6 years or so, just to be safe.

[Rob]

“Beyond that, I don’t know what more could be done to preserve against loss of resources/materials.”

LTO tape. The latest is LTO-4. I didn’t mention it because I’m assuming it’s not practical for anyone here, but if it is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_Tape-Open

[Anonymous]

Thanks so much for your responses. It’s been tremendously helpful.

[NewBirthProductions]

Mini DV is still remains the best archive solution.

[Aspyrider]

I bought a terabyte drive this week, waiting for it to arrive. I will fill it almost half full as soon as I get it. Will probably need another later this year. 🙂

Sheesh, video is huge! 🙂

J

[NewBirthProductions]

hard drives are great when you are still working on the project, but storing past jobs on it, good luck.

there are a few things in life you can count on, Dying, paying taxes, and your hard drive crashing.

[Author]

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