Now that it's been a few years (maybe? :>) that you've had your digital camera for, you've amassed a few pictures, right? I’m guessing a few thousand precious memories eh? Hhhmmm what would happen if you lost your computer/hard drive tomorrow? How many pictures/files/documents/CVs/websites/source code directories would YOU lose?
If you’re thinking “that’s ok, I back up my pics to CDs/DVDs.” Hhmmm you might have another think coming, you might be VERY surprised to learn a CDs/DVDs lifespan is very short! :<
I’ve been through a similar scenario mentioned above, a few years ago, and I have a friend who’s going through this right now. There is a potential he could lose a few years of pics/vids. :< Me? I was whipped out by a virus :<
My solution was simple, I just bought CD burner and backed up my pics to CD. Cool. But the 750MB quickly became my limiting factor, well, that and my burner took over an hour to burn a whole CD. :< Then I learned about the sullied world of CD disks, quality, lifetime, archivability, and other things that affect how much I rely on those shiny little disks to back up my precious snapshots in time.
DVDs to the rescue right?! Well, my burn time dropped to a minute or two, COOL! But I still had the archival problems associated with disks. Huh? Ya, the term “archival” in terms of disks/CDs/DVDs references how good they are at being able to read the data off them when you REALLY need it. Like after a HD crash. Some cheap disks are very, VERY weak, like 2yrs.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying ALL your CDs/DVDs are dead after two years. And there is a lot that goes into determining how log your disks will last. It’s just that the likelihood of getting the data/pictures/source code off those disks after two years drops dramatically as they age.
“That’s OK, I’ll just back them onto a portable hard drives.” That’s cool, and a smart idea! The only problem is they aren’t cheap. :< Last time I checked, an
HP “My Passport” was going for over $100. Cheap when compared to losing a few thousand pictures or the cost of
data recovery but it’s still $100. That’s expensive compared to the cost of a DVD disk. There’s also the problem of a spinning disk which will have physical wear as it ages. And when these things go, they fail badly, catastrophically you could say. What do I mean by that? The drive stops working and your data is toast. With disks your drive has a fighting chance of recovering some of the mangled data.
Data recovery could work but it’s expensive.
USB drives are showing promise, but are limited in capacity. 16GB are going for $50-$100, range depends on quality of construction, parts and speed. But that’s still pretty low on
ROI.
So what then? What are you supposed to do? Disks have a lifetime and portable hard drives can fail and USB keys are pricey. One option is to spring for the portable hard drive for your yearly backups and continue with the DVD burning for your “deltas” (new pictures). It’s always better to have MORE pictures than not enough (this strategy helped to relieve some of the virus sting I experienced).
Now I have another potential option for you computer savvy readers. If you have a spare computer at home or even just a small hard drive doing nothing but collecting dust, maybe you can bring it out of retirement and give it a new job! You can get a
hard drive enclosure relatively cheap now a days, stick in that hard drive and you have a cheap portable hard drive! If you’re lucky, you can get a few old hard drives to protect yourself against physical failure. The drives are old right, not perfect, but if you can get two/three to have multiple backups, if one dies on your, you have multiple copies.
This brings up one last point I’d like to make. Having a hard drive crash is something we geeks don’t wish on any other geek. But having a house fire and losing your entire computer/home office/sweet setup is just downright horrific and scary to just think about. BUT if you have multiple backups (disks and portable hard drives), it could make for one less thing to worry about losing in such a terrible event.
Time to think about your picture backup strategy. Now go grab a coffee and get coding. :>
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