Bferrara Loc: New Hampshire

Storing on CDs
I have been storing my photos on CDs with only 4.7 GB. I was wondering if anyone has moved on to the Blu-ray CD writer to store their photos? I shoot raw and the small CDs just doesn’t hold many pictures. I am not sure if I can even use a Blu-ray for my pictures. I do have a raid system for back up but was always told to copy Pix on a CD. I don’t want to lose anything. Looking for any suggestions. Thanks in advance

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

I used to use DVDs for storage. However, as the price of drives has dropped considerably, I used additional drives to store files now.
--Bob

warrior Loc: Paso Robles CA

I would like to recommend an external hard drive.

f8lee Loc: New Mexico

I would humbly suggest that you check your older CDs to see if they are still readable - due to oxidation of the mirrored surface that can occur where micro-cracks may exist at the edges a home-burnable CD or DVD can actually become unreadable just sitting on the shelf. Since optical discs are read from the outside in (opposite of a vinyl record) that oxidation at the edges (where the cracks can occur even as the result of flexing the disk to mount it on a spindle) once the outer edge goes the disc becomes nothing more than a coaster. This has happened to me years ago - it's one of the reasons I switched my backup procedure to use external hard drives (in fact, I rotate between 3 sets, one of which is kept offsite in a bank vault).

As hard drives get cheaper (2TB for $100 or less) individual disc storage does not make sense. In addition, where in the future it may be ever-more-difficult to find a device to read your CD (try to find a reader for 5-1/4" floppies or Jaz drives, etc.) hard drives connect with more standardized cabling. And even if, say, USB is getting phased out in the future then copying the contents of a USB (or Thunderbolt, which apparently IS getting phased out - thanks for another twist, Apple) it is not difficult to copy the contents of an old hard disk to a new one that does use the latest and greatest connection scheme.

jojo Smith Loc: Northern Michigan

started with CDs long ago and now external hard drive

Doddy Loc: Barnard Castle-England

Yes a good hard drive(s)..but get something like two 500gb drives (with the same info on them) rather than a one larger drive. This might be seen a more expensive way of saving your photos, but hard drives can pack up just like that!

suntouched Loc: Sierra Vista AZ

I have a Blu-ray CD writer to sell for 20.00 if you want. It works fine BUT who knows if CDs will be able to be read in the future. I am copying my CDs to external hard drives.

Jim-Pops Loc: Granbury, Texas

I started storing Digital files on 4.25 disk. Then went to CD's. And again moved on to DVD's. Now External hard disk with Second hard disk for back up. All these media devices come and go. Hard disks will be around longer and equally reliable.

I come from a printing background. The company still stores customer files on DVD's but then makes an additional one for back up after a job is completed. They've had DVD's go bad and needed to get the backup DVD when retrieving and old file. This is not a rare occurrence so if you decide to go this route make two of them.

I had a chance to see additional remarks and wanted to add that the company goes to the DVD quite often to retrieve files and because of the inserting and starting up so many time maybe that is causing some of the failures.

James Slick Loc: Pittsburgh,PA

I'm assuming you meant you have been storing on DVDs (Standard DVDs are 4.7Gb DL DVDs are 2x that.) CDs top out at 700Mb. A standard capacity Blu-ray disc will give 25 Gb and A DL Blu-ray will do 50Gb (in other words a Blue ray is better than 5x the capacity of DVD!) Burning a Blu-ray is not different from burning a DVD, so if you decide on burning them you already know how, The good news is that you don't have re do all of your DVDs or even CDs. All Blu-ray burners will read and write CDs and DVDs. In fact better! My Blu Ray burner will complete a DVD faster than my DVD burner did. Any decent computer made in the last 8 or so years can handle a Blu-ray burner.

JennT Loc: South Central PA

Suggest that you move everything to an external hard drive--- or perhaps 2 should one fail--

also become aware of the (new and different) varieties of cables and so on, be sure your new hard drive will talk to you computer.


also NOTE-- my new computer did not come with a CD reader or burner--- one must purchase a CD reader to view 'old' cd's.

lsimpkins Loc: SE Pennsylvania

You have this exactly backwards. Vinyl records go from outside edge to inner label. CDs, DVDs, and Blurays go from inside to out.

I fully agree that writable optical media is not a viable long term backup solution. External hard drives would be better and if off site storage is a consideration, cloud storage would be a third choice after internal (master) and external (primary backup).

CO

Use the M-Disc DVD's. They use a mineral based layer instead of the dye based layer as traditional CD's and DVD's. The data becomes permanently etched into the mineral layer. They're available in 4.7GB and 25GB versions. Accelerating life testing has determined they will remain stable for 1,000 years.

Steve DeMott Loc: St. Louis, Missouri (Oakville area)

I switched to blu-ray a couple of years ago. A recorder for a desktop computer will run around $100.00 installing to yourself. I have recordable CDs and DVDs over 20 years old and have not had any problems with defective discs.
Of course, this is not my only backup system. I also use hard drives and keep copies of everything in multiple Locations using both disks and hard drives.

ygelman Loc: new -- North of Poughkeepsie!

Huh? I don't know about optical discs, but in my years listening to vinyl records, I always placed the needle on the outside to start playing.

The point about always having to transfer to newer media for preservation is more relevant. I always resented having to do that, and in fact have lost a lot of what I thought I wanted to keep. But human progress has progressed from using technology making records to using technology to store records. (There just isn't enough space to store all those sticks with scratches on them.)

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC