Blu-ray

I'm seriously thinking of using them for storage purpose, since the price has come down quite a bit last year and I rather have store 1 BD disc instead of 5 DVDs.

DVD+R goes up to 70 year reliably but you have a good change high quality DVD still work after 100 year when stored correctly.
Does someone know what the lifetime is of todays BD?

I've searched the web but couldn't find anything conclusive.

Am I the only one with this idea here?

I was first thinking of burning them on DVD but since they are all raw files that means I need a lot of DVDs and using dual layer would help to shrink the numbers but they are also more expensive and quite close to the price of BD so not really a option I believe.

I know some here back up on DVD, can I ask how many DVDs you have?

Stefan,
have a look here http://www.delkin.com/products/archivalgold/archival-blue-ray-delkin.html

I have some of their Archival Gold DVD-R discs since I had some cheaper DVD+Rs give up after only a few years!

They are now doing a Blu-ray which is supposed to last for 200+ years. Not cheap though

Greytop, DVD+R are better for long storage then -R because of the way they are written but it also depend on the make how long they last as you've experience.

The BD in your link looks really good but really expensive though and not worth the money I believe.
Verbatim has always being good to me and a 5 pack BD is £21.34.

I know their DVD are very good but I've no idea how their BD are, they only say Extremely long archival life... yeah not very helpful

And they have stored a DVD for 50 years say already to test and substantiate these claims? I think not.

Mike

Mike, if you are referring to Delkin, they say quote "Using N.I.S.T.'s (National Institute of Standards and Technology) accelerated aging process to test the longevity of DVD-R media, the Archival Gold DVD-R has been shown to safely store your images for more then 100 years."

So in 100 years time when they don't work you can go wrong and strangle the MD's offspring's cat? I don't know what you do to get long terms storage but I wouldn't trust any of these technologies to the extent I'd doubt that I'd have a reader inclined to read the media in 20 years time.

Anyone remember that BBC Micro Doomsday project which I believe is recorded on media/format that no-one can read any more?

Mike

Two hard disks is the way to go, in my view. Replace when they start to get unreliable. Disks are very cheap now, and will get cheaper. It's far easier to back-up one hard disk to another than back-up a cupboard full of optical disks.

G

This raises the question of how much bigger image files will become. We are reaching the stage where resolution is limited by lenses rather than by sensors, and I don't see that there is much scope to squeeze a lot more resolution out of a lens. Of course, we could go over to 48 bit or 96 bit colour, but I am not sure that will give much benefit. How many colours can the eye see?

So I think RAW files will top out at perhaps 50MB, and with improvements in hard disk technology, soon that will seem small.

G

I agree, my preference is the hard disk approach, at least for my photography backups.
I only tend to use DVD's for storing family video footage. In this case I think it is worth investing in media that has at least the potential for outlasting 'run of the mill' DVD media found at PC world and Staples.

I now use harddisk as well but I've some photos I simple want a third copy off so DVD or BD would be perfect then. I was thinking of using DVD but for 20gb I would end up with 5 DVD's so 1 BD looks like a better option if it proves more reliable then DVD.

Another vote here for the hard disk approach, hourly backups to two 1TB drives on a weekly (sometimes monthly :blush rotation connected to my wireless router/NAS.

I'm also starting to use Flickr as a ad hoc backup of my better images. There aren't many of them so the upload time isn't too hideous I do realise Flickr only saves the jpeg and I don't know what level of lossy compression they apply, but at least it's at 100% resolution.

Another option would be Mozy, unlimited space for $5 a month. I already use them for offsite document backups. That's only a couple of gigabytes, not the dozens/hundreds of gigabytes an good image backup would be, but once the initial upload is done incremental backups are pretty quick. Plus archived images won't be changing often, so the incremental backup should be even faster. Mozy have a free 2GB option if you want to trial it, and they support both Mac and Windows.

I used to use a lot of DVDs for backups, hundreds of them. I stopped for several reasons: 1) due to their unreliability, 2) the price/gigabyte ratio of hard disks is now very similar to DVD (especially compared to expensive archival DVDs, 3) My hundreds of backup DVDs take up so much damn room compared to a HD, and 4) DVD burners only have a limited number of burns before the laser will crap out. The figure is surprising low - hundreds rather than thousands.

At home we have 2 old desk top machines, two lap tops and a large external hard drive. I manually copy all photo's over to all the machines and external drive. Very low tech and of course if we have a fire everything will be lost. Mind you that's just the same as it has always been with slides and negatives anyway. I used to make back ups to CD and then DVD but gave up doing that a year or so ago.

/Ian

It would be Once every 6 months or even to a year till I've a BD full with photos so internet storage with monthly fee isn't worth the money.
Also your storage is in the hands of others so what happends when they will go bankrupt?
I'm always sceptical with those things so don't worry, i just don't like giving my photos out of my hands.

ps. you always go off topic you know, we started with DVD and BD and now it's about so what every storage method.

$5 a month for automatic unattended incremental backups doesn't sound like much to me. Plus Mozy is owned by EMC - it doesn't seem too likely they will go bankrupt. Transfers are all encrypted of course.

Right you are. Sorry buddy

Just trying to point out a few alternatives. It seems to me there are valid reasons why more people and companies don't back up to DVD and BluRay. However if you'd prefer to restrict your thread to two rather unpopular backup mediums then of course that's fine with me I shall slink off and leave you alone, sorry!