speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

Are you using archivable CD's? They used to be one of the better solution for backing -up your files. CD's are a lot safer for back-up than DVD's, due to the layering of each. Those CD's have since been surpassed by solid state CD's ( M disks), which are still about the safest way to store your images, but as you said, the main flaw is capacity! There are very capable hard drives to have for little money these days, like for example, a WD my passport with 4TB can be had for $97. That's cheap and hard to beat! Definitely worth checking in to!

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Just for clarity, so called RAID 50 (5+0) involves striping data (RAID 0) across multiple RAID 5 redundancy groups. It offers better speed than RAID 5, but requires a minimum of 6 drives and a RAID controller capable of implementing it.

RAID 6 is the idea of using an extra parity on a RAID 5 machine and typically requires an extra drive. No additional speed, but protection against a double drive failure or a second failure while the 1st bad drive is rebuilding (which can take many days with large drives). RAID 50 can tolerate a double drive failure also, but only if the failures occur in different RAID 5 groups. Both systems lose performance (usually ~ 50%) while in a degraded state during a drive rebuild.

Both, like other RAID implementations, are really considered working storage with redundancy protection, not backup, archive or DR.

cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

I do have some of my shot-on-film images stored on CDs, but I have plans to add them to my Synology NAS systems shortly as I do not consider CDs appropriate for long term storage. Best of luck.

bpulv Loc: Buena Park, CA

What you said about vinyl records is not true and your disks will not last forever. Even if they do, CD and DVD players will not always be available. They are still making turntables and record players for 78, 45 and 33 and even 16 RPM records and, in fact vinyl record sales have been increasing the last few years. If you are referring to the Edison cylinder recordings, it is true that equipment is no longer made, but digital is a different animal. Digital recording systems, regardless of media, have one thing in common; they all record information as a mathematical collection of electronic ones and zeros. Therefore, as new media and methods come along, there will always be means for converting older data to new formats. In fact, when NASA launched the Voyager spacecrafts starting in 1977, they carried a gold plated digital recordings containing information about Earth, man and the times for any beings who found them a billion years from now; knowing that mathematical digital information would probably be translatable by any advanced civilizations (assuming they exist). This must be true because the government spent our money on it.

Seriously though, every time there has been an advance in technology, there has always been a means to convert the old to the new. So as long as one periodically transfers the old data to the new media of the day, the data will be safe. Remember, color film dyes fade. Digital information does not as long as it is stored on media for which there is equipment available to read them.

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

FWIW - I used to keep backups of my music library on CD-R, but found that after a short time many had read errors and were worthless. You are going in the right direction in my opinion, however, add additional backup storage off site for un-replaceable files.

Personally, I store all my raw images on an external disk which is backed up hourly to my external Time Machine disk - my images and select files from my system are also backed up monthly to an external kept in a fire resistant/waterproof box, and I make use of Crashplan to store a backup of everything, internal and external, off site which backsup all files 24x7.

The key thing is - test your backup recovery procedure to confirm it is workable. :)

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

That is excellent advice! Even with enterprise grade backup SW, restores do occasionally fail.

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

You betcha! In fact, I would amend my comment to test multiple times, at least annually!

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

They have to be more reliable with just one port. Fewer soldered stress points to crack the motherboard. Great if you travel. Just put a smaller breakout box in your bag and leave a bigger one connected to all your desktop peripherals.

cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

Agreed. I have a vast amount of Raid 1 & Raid 5 storage (almost 100TB). Everything is rotated off site regularly. Thanks for looking out for me!

Dikdik Loc: Winnipeg, Canada

Stay away from Western Digital HDs... I've had 4 go south in the last two years.

Dik

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

Depends on which ones you buy.... I have many WD's running here, spinning for years now with no problems (Of course tomorrow is another day ;) )

https://mybroadband.co.za/news/hardware/95487-best-and-worst-hard-drive-makes.html

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

There are stories of WDs lasting a decade, and some for a month. Same with Seagate and most other drive manufacturers - it often depends on what plant built the drive. Best practice is to check data from providers who run a large inventory of spinning drives and keep good records like Backblaze. The only downside is they use consumer class drives. In HDs, you get what you pay for, Backblaze expects regular drive failures and has redundancy and procedures in place to deal with that on a very regular basis, while many/most consumers do not, which leads to the second best practice: buy enterprise class drives. And finally, more smaller drives are a better solution than fewer large drives. More expensive on a per TB basis, but less to lose in a catastrophic failure and much less time to rebuild in a RAiD array.

cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

In my experience, WD and Seagate provide the most reliable drives. Look for the professional versions. Best of luck.

dsmeltz Loc: Philadelphia

Backblaze also reports failure stats. Here is there 3rd quarter 2107 report:

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-failure-rates-q3-2017/

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

I use thumb drives because they are more convenient for me.