If you die in 20 years, will there still be a way to open your digital files? What will your family do?
Cut to the chase, archive them on a 5" floppy.
DirtFarmer
Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA
Don't tell me you're still using a computer that has a 5" floppy drive?
Bill P wrote:
If you die in 20 years, will there still be a way to open your digital files? What will your family do?
Cut to the chase, archive them on a 5" floppy.
As long as they have been migrated to newer media before the older media goes away.
I didn't have any JPEGs when I had 5-1/4 media, but I did when I had 3-1/4, which were backups. Then the backups went to CD, and are now on DVD - and will be backed up on the next media to come along.
Longshadow wrote:
As long as they have been migrated to newer media before the older media goes away.
I didn't have any JPEGs when I had 5-1/4 media, but I did when I had 3-1/4, which were backups. Then the backups went to CD, and are now on DVD - and will be backed up on the next media to come along.
I learned that the hard (stupid) way. When I went to a 486 computer, it came with two 3-1/2" drives but no 5-1/4" so I had to cancel the sale of my older computer to a friend, had to put the 5-1/4" in one of the 3-1/2 bays, get photos and data transferred to HD, then to 3-1/2" floppies after some clean up. Then had to put 5-1/4" back in old drive to sell, and 3-1/2" back in new computer. Lesson learned, do NOT get rid of your old computer until you are sure you have migrated everything.
BTW, the newer media is here - the cloud, SD cards & thumb drives. My latest computer does not have a DVD/CD drive, so kept old to start getting everything off CD/DVDs. They are now considered old & slow media so suggest you start migrating now. CDs are pretty well gone and DVD will be right behind them.
rpavich wrote:
I would never toss pictures and keep scans.
Pictures exist in the real world, scans are just vapor.
I abso agree. Yesthere are negatives from the 30's onward ... but sitting and looking at a box of snaps with obscure family members is A Good Thing.
One little EMP pulse and all your data is lost. Drop your backup drive- if you have one. Maybe your icloud account got hacked. Or corrupted. Or dropped. Real is real.
So yeah, you got the negs, so keep the top 25% of your photos. Caption them, label them, put them in labeled envelopes/ boxes, and keep them safe.
Especially with all the "Ancestry" apps going- you might find you're related to people you didn't know about (like so many of us!) and those pictures make things more interesting.
Stardust wrote:
.....
Lesson learned, do NOT get rid of your old computer until you are sure you have migrated everything.
.....
Most definitely! And hopefully the old one didn't die completely!
One time I had two computers running side by side with a KVM switch for the monitor, keyboard, & mouse for weeks while I migrated everything. Only after making sure everything was moved did I retire the old computer. (If both computers had network ports it would have been much easier to cable them.) I hate getting a new system..... Re-installing all that software.
Longshadow wrote:
Most definitely! And hopefully the old one didn't die completely!
One time I had two computers running side by side with a KVM switch for the monitor, keyboard, & mouse for weeks while I migrated everything. Only after making sure everything was moved did I retire the old computer. (If both computers had network ports it would have been much easier to cable them.) I hate getting a new system..... Re-installing all that software.
I usually upgrade about every 5 yrs due to so many technical advancements and before old gives me problems and I can network for any data, photos, videos, etc transfer. (That was harder back in days of 286s, 386, 486, etc) And, although reinstalling software is a pain, I also find it gives me a reason to clean up... and sometimes upgrade to the latest version. ("Honey, I had to buy new software, the old won't work on my new computer.") I tend to accumulate software to try out but if not using it doesn't go on new machine. Some times forced clean up is good (or tough like the photos you are wrestling with now).
Longshadow wrote:
Most definitely! And hopefully the old one didn't die completely!
One time I had two computers running side by side with a KVM switch for the monitor, keyboard, & mouse for weeks while I migrated everything. Only after making sure everything was moved did I retire the old computer. (If both computers had network ports it would have been much easier to cable them.) I hate getting a new system..... Re-installing all that software.
Fastest way to find how many people you are related to is win the lottery - suddenly about one million or two million cousins need a "loan".
Stardust wrote:
....
"Honey, I had to buy new software, the old won't work on my new computer."
....
Yea, had that happen to two applications when I went to Win 7!
I didn't have any JPEGs when I had 5-1/4 media, but I did when I had 3-1/4, which were backups. Then the backups went to CD, and are now on DVD - and will be backed up on the next media to come along.[/quote]
My point exactly. nobody is still using a computer that uses floppies, Zip drives are so old and many have to use a special connection, and backing up on a CD is both labor intensive and unreliable, as CD's burned on a computer are prone to failure.
And I don't trust the cloud. I use portable hard drives, as I consider that to be the best of many questionable alternatives. And don't just make one backup acnd call it good. Keep one at home to make additions, and one ina safe deposit box that you update monthly.
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