Media Storage

New Hampshire · May 22, 2007

I recently picked up a laptop computer. I was using the family computer but wanted something I could use all the time since I just got a film scanner from my friend. On the family computer I was using a 250mb Zip Drive, I found out the plug in cord appears not to be compatable with any of the laptop's ports. So now I am in a quandry about how to best and esaily store my scanned and Photoshopped images. I do have a CD RW, so have the option of burning to CD. But I like the versatility of the Zip. So, anyone have an idea or suggestion of what to do?

Brian

firemedic0135 · May 22, 2007

I was looking at these last night.They are all on sale at best buy but I am sure you could find something similar online/ebay or other.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...p=&qp=&list=n&iht=y&usc=All+Categories&ks=960

usayit · May 22, 2007

When it comes to hard-drives, failure is not an "if" it is a "when". They all eventually fail. For archival, your best bet would be a high quality (cheapo brands have short lives) CD-R (I use efilm gold). For short term portable storage, the portable hard drives like ones pointed to by fire medic are fine.

If hard drive based storage is what you truely want to rely on, make sure you make backups/copies to CD-Rs just incase of harddrive failure.

Alex_B · May 22, 2007

i disagree... make copies of your harddrives to harddrives .. less effort than burning hundreds of DVDs or thousands of CDs .. and very reliable.

pretty unlikely that both your backup drive and your drive fails you at the same time ...

usayit · May 22, 2007

Thats what I currently do in addition to.... saving to magnetic tape.

Its varying degrees of safe storage.

For example.

[least safe]
single hard drive
multiple hard drives. Mirror
DVD-Rs
CD-Rs
Magnetic tape
[most safe]

The most obvious "safe" bet for storage is CD-Rs which is reasonable to use at home. BTW.. mirrored harddrives are relatively safe but not totally.. There are ways to screw up a mirrored hard drive set.. believe me I have seen it a thousand times (I am a Computer Disaster recovery Specialist by trade). You also don't have the opportunity to offsite the media. I usually recommend... working hard drive space with good quality CD-Rs for backups. Take the backups to work and leave them locked up in your desk.

If you have the opportunity to use mirrored disks.. Do so... but you should still make copies of the data of the mirrored set and offsite.

RobinChen · May 22, 2007

I was going to go with a Western Digital 500GB mybook premium to back up my files. Do HDS fail? absolutely. Thats why my External will be my travel HDD and I will back everything up on another 500gb internal on my tower. Price to gb ratio that one is a pretty good option. Comes with alot of ports if you prefer firewire over usb.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136030
I just checked Costco, the stop selling it =( It was there a week ago when I checked.

Garbz · May 22, 2007

I have a higher failure rate with CDs then with HDDs. The CDs around here last 3-5 years tops with our temperatures. CDs are NOT a lifetime storage solution. Mind you I have harddisks which are pushing 7 years now.

I prefer to put things on hard disks. Two infact. At the same time. If one fails I will take the other offline until I can buy a second one and restore the redundancy. This can be done automatically via hardware or software using RAID1 (redundant array of independent disks - Mirroring) or just by making sure whenever you copy to one you copy to the other.

Really with the cost of storage so low these days, multiple hard disks are a very viable solution.

usayit · May 23, 2007

Everything is relative... Good branded CD-Rs are well above the reliability of hard drives. The market is flooded with crap CD-Rs because of their relatively low cost to manufacture.

Hard drives have a lot of mechanics as well as electronics that can fail. Constant read/write access can also corrupt them... corruption can carry through both disks in the mirrored set. No offsiting either.

http://www.delkin.com/products/archivalgold/cdr.html

People buy hundred pack of CD-Rs for 10 bucks and have what type of expectations?

http://www.cd-info.com/
http://www.osta.org/

Another place that I've heard make good CD-Rs:
http://www.mam-a-store.com/

Speakin of the devil:
http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=82356

I sure hope he can recover.

My shop has 200+ TB of disk space across mirrored EMC frames using commercial grade hard drives. The EMC tech shows up every-once-in-a-while (at least a couple times a month) to hot replace several disks that have called back to EMC for replacement. Among all those drives in that building, I'm sure I can find a single disk that has survived over the past 10 years. What does that prove? nothing...

Another option that is rarely mentioned is online storage service. Let someone else worry about the longevity of your data.

cott07 · May 23, 2007

You can use Gold quality DVD's which do have a longer life of up to 50 years or as someone has suggested a removeable drive(s). Another tip, if you use a product called Datacatch Librarian www.datacatch.com you can catalog and then search all your archived or offline backups in Windows so you can then actaully FIND the photos stored!

DblArrow · May 24, 2007

For you techies - what about using flash drives or the new flash hard drives? No moving parts.

Thanks

usayit · May 24, 2007

No experience with them but I bet it will be a while before the cost/gb is reasonable for home use. Just keep in mind the nature of hard disks and how they are used does not make them 100% against data loss.

Believe it or not.. they've been around for a while in small capacities. I worked for a company that deployed them on oil rigs and ships. The rate of failure was reduced due to their durability in regards to shock and motion but at a premium in cost.

I'm keeping my eye on the new sony blue ray writable disks.... but I'm not holding my breath. Everytime Sony attempts to create/market a new storage or format, it never takes off. (Think mini-disc).

this is what I try to stick with now a days.

Striped SATA drives for a fast workspace and O/S -> migrated to ->
Mirrored Firewire drives for short term storage -> migrated to ->
Archival gold CD-Rs offsite (at my office)

Mirrored Firewire drives are also backed to magtape weekly (or when I get to it)

Just saw yet another thread in the digital forum regarding hard disk problems..... call me paranoid.. but my job makes me so.

Buszaj · May 25, 2007

Hey,
Use an external hard drive. They can store a lot of stuff, and are portable.

fotogenik · May 29, 2007

My personal backup solution is this. Files go from camera to laptop. Files on laptop are backed-up nightly (via network copy) to my desktop system downstairs. The desktop copies the files to two mirrored external hard drives that are never ever moved from their spots on the desk. Files on the desktop downstairs are backed up to my web server in a directory path not available for access to the web server itself.

I was lucky enough to get in on the inagural opening of my web hosting company and got a serious deal on space available to me. Here is my current utilization

Disk Space
7543 MB of 150000.0 MB in use

That's 7.543 GB used out of an available 150GB available. Yes I will eventually run out of space online and will have to find a more permanent archival method but for now it does me just fine.