CD OR NOT TO CD

[mikehawthorne]

I have always burned my photos to cd but lately i have had a few problems with the cd that seems to take ages to load the disc player stutters like its complaining, it does not happen with all cd"s, but it is annoying when it happens think i may start using memory sticks or spare hard drive in futer, any one had same problem.

mike hawthorne

[Dusty]

Mike,

A good DVD should have a longer life than a CD. You may have a Cd writer or player that's dirty or misaligned. I back my stuff up to 2 separate USB drives, and soon plan on putting in a linux based storage server (Open Filer).

Remember, unlike prints and negatives, there's nothing to go back to if you lose your pictures, so make good backups!

Dusty

[Javelin]

Ive had mixed results storing stuff on CD. I've pretty much settled on verbatim CD's and have somethat are 5 years old with no problems so far. I've had to go back to older stuff to make a new archive of all my pictures and haven;t had a problem except of the cheapie ones and now I use all DVDs

[bakubo]

An alternative that you might consider is using external hard disks. I haven't saved my photos to CD in quite a few years. I bought my first external hard disk in 2003 and since then I have bought 3 more. I back up my photos to them and it is so much easier and they are all available on one disk with quick access. I make sure I have at a minimum two copies. For example, at the moment I have 2 of them connected to my notebook computer. The 2 external hds have identical files on them. The hard disk on the notebook has only the photos for the last few months so for those I actually have 3 copies.

When I bought my first external hd in 2003 I copied all my CDs to it and since then when I buy a new external hd I just copy the contents of the previous one to it. The one I bought about 8-9 months ago was 1tb for $200, but I have seen them for $100 recently.

[aster]

Hi,

I used CDs, DVDs and external harddisks. The CDs and DVDs can last longer if kept in a room/space with little or no magnetic field which means a space with no TV, or electronic equipment that have their power on. The less power cables around the space they are stored the better and they definitely don't like dust as the nature of dust gathered can be detrimental to the surface and content of the CDs and DVDs making them unreadable.

External harddisks are a pleasure to use because they make searching for content easier but DVDs and CDs are very light and easy to carry around. I use them all, so I can't favor one to the other,they have their places. But it's crucial to get quality copies of any of these storage means.

Yildiz

[stevecim]

Hi Mike

Storing CD/DVD, main thing is to keep them away from light. use better brands, be carefully about what marker you use to label them. I've had clients use ball point pen to label their CD then ring me and complain when their CD don't work.

If you find it happening to more and more CD, I found it normally means time to replace the CD burner.

For clients that have mission critical data archived on CD/DVD I recommend they reburn the data onto new CD/DVD every 5 years.

Now that I have the a350, I'm try to decide whats the best long term storage solution.

for now, I split my camera jpegs and raw to different hard disks in my main PC, then sync them to my server, then I sync the jpgs from the server to my wifes laptop ( she's not interested in working with RAWs ) But my server is running out of hard disk and has no room to add more disks.

Cheers Stephe