Jump to content

Best way to preserve deep digital archives for future generations


kerbie18
 Share

Recommended Posts

We all, I assume, have very old family pictures. My family has shown me pictures of my family that survived the civil war. That's well in excess of 150 years old. (their participation was 150 years ago, sorry) Actually, some pics are probably quite older.

In this digital age, and cloud storage. How do I preserve pics in this digital age? Actually, I have already had digital only pics survive digital only storage from 1998 to 2019 and counting, so that's 21 years!

Still, I haven't figured out how to preserve pics well in excess of 150 years...I'd particularly like to preserve my family's pics of the civil war era, but modern pics too. Even modern day too...

Edited by kerbie18
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are, like, six pictures of me when I was a baby.  Everybody will glance at them and say, "Cute!".

We went camping last weekend...

Overall,  there were probably 147,700 pictures taken of the grandkid.

When he's my age,  everybody will look at the first six and say, "Cute!"

The rest of them (and that was only two days worth) will be ignored for perpetuity.

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, kerbie18 said:

We all, I assume, have very old family pictures. My family has shown me pictures of my family that survived the civil war. That's well in excess of 150 years old. (their participation was 150 years ago, sorry) Actually, some pics are probably quite older.

In this digital age, and cloud storage. How do I preserve pics in this digital age? Actually, I have already had digital only pics survive digital only storage from 1998 to 2019 and counting, so that's 21 years!

Still, I haven't figured out how to preserve pics well in excess of 150 years...I'd particularly like to preserve my family's pics of the civil war era, but modern pics too. Even modern day too...

My company was asked to do this for the Department of Energy videos of the contents of sealed barrels of transuranic waste from each of the Nuclear Energy sites.

The conclusion was that it is nearly impossible.  Still images were done by my company for the first close up rover photos of Mars and we did it by making Thin metal film on glass substrates, pictures which could be overlaid to produce real color.

The storage of video data was a whole different animal since if you committed to a format for storage, the likelihood that a means to display them would be technically lost over time due to technical obsolescence.

The first thought was DVDs, but it turns out that the dye isn't stable enough to last that long.   They decided to only worry about 20 to 25 years and hope some new technology would come along at that time.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ask a pro what an archive is.  Hint - it is not a DVD or CD.

I guess it depends on your time frame - after you're gone who really cares right?  As long as each generation makes a copy on some media I guess it's all we can ask.  After all, we are all dust anyways on a silly little rock that is 3 stones away from another silly little rock that is 1 galaxy in billions of others in an unimaginable scale of time and space.

ETA - Wow, lots of bubbly pink wine has a bigger effect on me than I thought.  Just go to Best Buy, they'll know what to do. 

I'm not even sure if I should use affect or effect there but I don't really care.  Dust in the wind bros.

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It seems to me that the format (e.g., GIF)  is immaterial, as long as it will convey the image losslessly. A tougher nut is how to store the digital image indefinitely (pits in basalt, maybe), and then how to communicate to the future reader how to decode the information. We can't assume they will understand English.

Heck, I write notes to myself that I can't decipher a week later.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not fool proof but there are high quality DVD's & CD's if you intend to archive stuff.  I use the Taiyo Yuden DVD's and some are going on over five years and no data errors yet.   Make sure you have a good DVD burner that will write on all these disks.

What are the Best Blank DVDs?

Not everybody has the time or the need to learn about why/how media is good or bad. If you’re simply after the quick advice on what discs will almost always work the best in any DVD player or DVD burner, then get one of these:

  1. Mitsubishi Verbatim DVD-R, DVD+R or DVD+R DL,
  2. JVC Taiyo Yuden DVD-R or DVD+R,
  3. Sony DVD-R or DVD+R,

http://www.digitalfaq.com/reviews/dvd-media.htm

 

This is dated info but still good.

http://www.mdisc.com/

These discs cost about three dollars apiece. The Blu-ray versions will cost about three times that. The DVDs are available now, with the Blu-ray versions expected this summer. Both are from Ridata, a large manufacturer of optical and other media.

The Life Cycle and Environmental Engineering Branch of the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division at China Lake did a review of the M-DISC  and other "archival" media and concluded:

None of the Millenniata media suffered any data degradation at all. Every other brand tested showed large increases in data errors after the stress period. Many of the discs were so damaged that they could not be recognized as DVDs by the disc analyzer.

http://www.mdisc.com/

Edited by pipedreams
Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, gwalchmai said:

Clay tablets have the best track record so far.

But they need someone who has spent their whole lives to learn how to read them.  The longest lasting record for the least amount of readers.  Not for the masses.

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Maser said:

I kinda feel bad for the zoomers for when they get up there in age and are reminded of all the goofy selfies they took as teens with those stupid looking filters on them. 

That's why I'm glad I did all my stupid stuff before it was recorded for the archives.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, gwalchmai said:

The masses won't be reading CDs in 150 years.

That's true.  In fact I wonder if the masses will even be able to read in 150 years. 

Look at how our schools have begun to eliminate classes because, "The students don't need to learn "this", or It's too hard for the students. 

The easiest thing for the student is to not learn anything, so now they are all equal, equal in ignorance.

Many time what you learn isn't as important as the simple fact that you are "learning".

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

As a retired commercial photographer who also shot a few hundred gigs of 1080p at the end, I had this issue when I converted to digital in 2000 and again when I retired in 2012.

For my clients, I gave them the hard drives, cables and power supplies when I closed up shop. (those I could find)

Smaller clients (weddings and family's) were given the CD-R and DVD's, I kept a backup on (3x) hard drives.  Could not find more than half the clients, I will hang on to them indefinitely.  (I had a bride contact me 10 years after the fact for pics of her mom at the wedding, she had died and they wanted all I had.)

My personal stuff is on hard drives and SSD's.  SSD's are shelf stable for a 50 years at least.

Yes, My filing/labeling system is pretty good.  Not perfect, but I can find anything in a few minutes to a an hour.

I still have a decade's worth of 35mm and 120mm film, unscanned.  I looked at some of it last year after 20+ years in storage (kept in an Air Con'ed room and air tight containers) and they held up very well.

 

Most of that stuff is not worth a tinker's dam to anyone, but I keep it anyways.

 

As technology progress I will address it in the future.  I probably have a few hundred terabytes already and 2x that in unscanned film, so the cloud is not a serious option for long term storage.  I do use private setting on facebook photo storage for any client who needs it right now.  Seems to work.  But no guarantee of privacy.

 

All this is contingent on my memory holding out.  I recently got diagnosed with TBI.  (traumatic brain injury)  So if I remember, I will stay abreast of new technologies and such.

Edited by JimBianchi
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I work with a number of photographers as part of an agency.  We used to burn everything to DVDs (original + copy) but now use a NAS system onsite + the agency server offsite (that agency server is backed up to the cloud).  Instead of individual computers, the NAS system is used for storage of all assignments when they are being edited as well as after they are completed.  The NAS has the advantage/capacity to sharing assignments with clients via links, so they can see and download their photos.  Once an assignment is completed (edited, etc...), it is also copied to our agency server, but where the ability to make changes/edits/deletes of photos/assignments are limited to certain personnel.   

We moved away from DVD because it is not considered archival and DVD technology is going the way of the dinosaurs. DVDs burn too slowly and storage is limited.  Current cameras shoot 24MP frames in jpeg.  Try storing RAW files!    

Edited by PATCHMAN
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

  • Please Donate To TBS

    Please donate to TBS.
    Your support is needed and it is greatly appreciated.
×
×
  • Create New...