I've had the pleasure of thinking about digital archiving at work. I work at a Neurophysiology dept at a hospital and we produce a lot of digital data and one of our great problems is how to properly archive every test we perform. The outcome of our intensive thinking :) would be Magneto-optical disks. They are really reliable, we have disks nearly ten years old that works like a charm. They can be stored 50 years, or so they say. The disks are protected by a plastic case and they come in both 5 1/4" (5.2Gb) and 3 1/2" (1.3Gb). Of course not everyone has a reader, but I'm talking about archiving for your own purposes. The 3 1/2" drives are coming down in price. I think you could find a reader (USB) for US$300-350 today. Of course the disks are a bit on the expensive side (20-25$) but hey, you get what you pay for :)
Just a thought. Petter Jarbo (Delurking in progress...) > Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 22:07:00 -0800 > From: Bruce Dayton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Digital Storage > > Well, I thought I would tell you all about an experience I am going > through. Hopefully, you will learn from my frustration. > > We have had many discussions of archiving images and how stable > digital storage is. Let me first tell you how I handle my images. > Each roll that is processed is scanned and stored with an assigned > roll #. Standard storage is jpg at 5% compression-max resolution of > scanner (2800 dpi). When enough rolls have been scanned to fill a CD, > I burn 2 copies of the rolls (original and backup). So I have a bunch > of CD's that function as my catalog of images and many times the basis > for digital printing, etc. I put the original and backup in a jewel > case that holds 2 cd's and then store them. > > A few days ago, I needed to find an image so I pulled out a few of the > CD's and put one in the drive - couldn't read it. I looked at it and > found that it was cracked. I started to examine several of them and > found that they all were exhibiting the same problem. Turns out that > the jewel cases I had used had very stiff spindles to hold the cds and > it was causing them to crack and radiate cracks from the center > outward. > > I am in the process of copying all the cd's back to hard disk to > reburn them and *NOT* use those jewel cases again! So far, I have > lost 2 cd's (both original and backup are unusable) which is about 10 > rolls. On the fortunate side, I have the negatives and can rescan > them. > > I haven't checked my digital only images (Nikon Coolpix) yet. For > those, they would just be lost. So, be careful and cautious, because > these images are fragile and deserve major care. > > I'm not trying to flame the digital/film debate, but I am sure glad I > have the negatives! > > > Bruce Dayton (record on film/print digitally man) > - - > This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, > go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to > visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org . - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
