Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Eventually everything is a Dodo.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

First of all, you should not be storing all your archival files in one place. If your DVDs are working, that's fine, but you should be backing them up. If one does fail, will that cause you mild inconvenience or real pain?

When I had a DVD fail after 3 years I stopped storing things on DVDs. Even though the DVD that failed was probably bought from the low bidder. I only use DVDs for temporary storage or for transfer of files now.

Archiving your files requires Duplication, Distribution, and Maintenance.
Duplication: make several copies of your files on different media. If one fails, there will be another to take up the slack.
Distribution: Put some of the copies somewhere else. If your house is destroyed by fire, flood, tornado, or whatnot, there will be a copy somewhere else to take up the slack.
Maintenance: External hard drives are what most people use to store their stuff. They have a finite lifetime. You should be aware of that, you should know what the expected lifetime is, and you should replace aging drives. You should also check the stuff on the drives you have now to be sure that the files are OK.

Cloud storage is a good thing. It costs some money, it is bandwidth limited, but it is maintained by professionals, while your storage is probably maintained by an amateur. Local storage is a good thing. It costs some money but the restore bandwidth is much larger than the cloud bandwidth.

Local storage should be your primary backup. Cloud storage is your backup backup.

And the above applies to ALL your files, not just your photos.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Some only care about photos?????

I have scanned documents (PDF); receipts; manuals; .doc; .xls; .txt; and HTMP/PHP code I wrote that gets backed up.
To me those are equally important!!!
Why save only pictures to a cloud service that only lets you save photos???

DWU2 Loc: Phoenix Arizona area

As Jackson Browne has taught us, "Don't think it won't happen just because it hasn't happened yet."

f8lee Loc: New Mexico

@CHG_CANON makes good points.

You must understand the reason home-burned disks (CD or DVD) can fail is not just because of scratches and scuffs as were already mentioned. The reason they fundamentally differ from commercially purchased optical disks (music or movies) is this: the latter are stamped (much like vinyl records) - the 'pits' are pressed into the substrate mechanically.

Home burned optical disks use a layer of material that may be ablated by a relatively weak laser, and the material from which that layer is made may oxidize over time if exposed to air (remember it is underneath the top layer of protective plastic). The term "micro cracks" is used to describe the almost microscopic tears that can occur in that top protective layer, particularly as the result of mechanical stress when the disk is removed from or placed in a holder or bent in any manner. And, unlike a vinyl record, where you could play back, say, track #3 even if track #1 is scratched, with an optical disk the entire thing becomes little more than a coaster if any part of the surface is fouled and unreadable.

So that is the technical difference between commercial and home burned optical disks. On top of that, as CHG_CANON points out, the entire issue of having a reading device for same becomes a real issue - anyone here still have that 3.5" floppy drive? A Jazz drive? The list goes on.

Hard drives fail, yes, as do SSDs - and you should not rely on just one of those either. Backing up is essential for any data related storage effort as failure is just about inevitable. Of course, copying 500GB of files (images or otherwise) from hard drive to hard drive is far faster than attempting the same with optical drives, but that's just a time comparison which might impact a backup strategy of having 3 copies of the data (one off site).

They're your images and you can do as you wish - just don't do it under the veil of ignorance that CDs and DVDs you burned at home are in any way archival. I suspect I'm not the only one who has lost precious photos in this manner.

traderjohn Loc: New York City

Given the suspected age in this group, in 10 years' time, a functioning anything will be a memory.

BurghByrd Loc: Pittsburgh

I would suggest redundancy. I have experienced a hard drive failure and unfortunately in that case the FAT was rendered useless when the disc head crashed into that section of the disc. It's possible that the CIA or NSA could have recoverd the files but I could not and lost many photographs and other files (did not have an adequate backup system in place). Your CD's should last if they're taken care of but the technology is already moving on and you may find yourself unable to purchase a device to read them at some point in the future. Nothing wrong with your CD's but I'd recommend you supliment them with at least one backup on a HDD or SSD. It's a pain just like any other type of insurance.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

“Past performance is no guarantee of future results “.

Bill_de Loc: US

The pits and lands are created in commercially produced products. When you create your own it is a different, less permanent process.

When you write data to a CD-R, the writing laser (which is much more powerful than the reading laser) heats up the dye layer and changes its transparency. The change in the dye creates the equivalent of a non-reflective bump. This is a permanent change, and both CD and CD-R drives can read the modified dye as a bump later on.

It turns out that the dye is fairly sensitive to light -- it has to be in order for a laser to modify it quickly. Therefore, you want to avoid exposing CD-R discs to sunlight.

https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/question287.htm

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jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I've found the same thing. They seem to last "forever."

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

👍👍

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

The biggest issue with media longevity isn't necessarily media deterioration... It is compatibility with future equipment!

Just think of the changes in interfaces over the years:

ADB (Apple Desktop Bus)
Serial and Parallel
SCSI
FireWire (IEEE 1394 a, b, c...)
USB 1, 2, 3, C, 4
Thunderbolt 1, 2, 3, 4

Will the drive you have to read CD and DVD disks be compatible with some future connection? Will the future operating system support that drive with device driver software? Will cosmic radiation have blasted through the microcircuits in your devices, wreaking havoc on them?

The new mDisc standard is supposed to enable discs to survive for several hundred to a thousand years, but... will future generations be able to read them?

I have cassette audio tapes, reel-to-reel audio tapes, Hi-8 tapes, Digital-8 tapes, and DV tapes that I can't play now, without buying or borrowing a used player. Of course, after 50 years, some of those tapes have lost much of their original signal due to heat and magnetic fields.

Cloud storage is one great way to ensure that (as long as you pay for it), your media will survive. Prints are another... But probably the best strategy is to save the same files on three different kinds of media and store devices to play them with those media.

All that said, I have CDs from the late 1990s that are still in good shape. Unfortunately, the images on them are medium resolution JPEGs, scanned from film, but I can make better "camera scans" from the original negatives.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Darn, so much for storing them upside down, no case, on the roof.

Toby

Good to know. Thanks

Robertski Loc: So California

Everyone is talking about the oxide layer being protected between 2 polycarbonate plastic layers with a chance of scratching. My experience of failure has been mostly related to humidity where I see the rot occurring starting at the outside or inside edges. Think of trying to lick the cream out of an Oreo without biting the wafers.