Calling all period technology experts...

[Lime]

IMO if negatives and slides are kept clean, cool, dry and in the dark they will far outlast any modern means of storage.

 

[Flyfisher]

The longevity of colour slides/negs is not really that impressive - certainly nowhere near the age of many of our period properties.

Kodachrome material is calculated to lose 20% of its yellow dye over 185 years, which would result in severe colour distortion, but if you actually want to project the material then the fade time can be measure in hours. :shock:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodachrome#Archival_stability

 

[Lime]

Slides gave better colour rendering than photos from that era (60s), that is why many people chose to use them.
But they were never that good, colours were always "not quite right" and the balance went downhill quite quickly if left in the light.
If the initial exposure was incorrect the colours could look awful from the start.
I have many colour prints from that era and they have all aged badly, primarily the greatest damage has been done by the sun.
The negatives of those photos that have never seen much of the light of day are all good however.
Then of course black and white photos and negatives have a far better shelf life than that of colour.
I still maintain as a method of storage (in good conditions) they are still a better bet than most modern media.
I don't have the confidence in "cloud" technology that a lot of people have.
Maybe it is because I lost a lot of my own information many years ago when a server crashed losing most of everything held on it.
Also I wonder how all domestic and commercial modern technology would fair in a world war situation.
(and we will have another world war, of that I'm certain.)

 

[Flyfisher]

Also I wonder how all domestic and commercial modern technology would fair in a world war situation.
(and we will have another world war, of that I'm certain.)

That's a really motivating thought for Moo to ponder while wondering what to do with her old media. :lol:

 

[wobs]

I don't have the confidence in "cloud" technology that a lot of people have.

Very much agree.

Maybe it is because I lost a lot of my own information many years ago when a server crashed losing most of everything held on it.
Also I wonder how all domestic and commercial modern technology would fair in a world war situation.
(and we will have another world war, of that I'm certain.)

If stored in a sturdy box, it should fair just as well as paper for the short to medium term.

Currently, I see the best data storage of multiple gigabytes being blu-ray discs. Although I don't have one currently.

Blu-rays are based on inorganic materials, making them less likely to degrade, whereas DVDs have organic material in them (and writeable ones are just printed marks on the surface as FF pointed out).

I currently have two extrernal hard drives (one of which is stored off site). I could get all our data on about 4 blu-ray discs ATM (can't yet justify cost though), although of course, this will change as the years roll on.

The next generation of discs look like they will store 300GB:
http://www.infoworld.com/d/storage/sony-and-panasonic-collaborate-develop-300gb-optical-disc-223664
No idea of their stability yet though.

 

[wobs]

I should add that USB sticks (flash drives) are also a poor long term storage medium. A very useful tool for day to day use, but not for storing precious files long term.

If I had cine film or some other old film media, I would get it digitised professionally. VHS can be done easily at home though. Although I doubt I could get the best quality.

Music is a different matter, with many options. Your tape or vinyl can be digitised using one of the following fine bits of kit (a rather old article):

http://www.knowzy.com/Computers/Audio/Digitize_Your_LPs/USB_Record_Player_Turntable_Comparison.htm

Although I use my Brennan hard drive. Its easy, and I use it as my main player anyway.
USB turntables generally have a bad reputation for quality.

An interesting essay on really long term data storage:
http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/Robust.HTM

 

[skier-hughes]

Cloud technology is brilliant, but it's like any other form of storing material, If it's your only method you will soon run into trouble.
If you use it for backing up material, it is a very cheap and easy way to do it.
It also enables easy access to material from anywhere in the world, from any piece of tech kit, phone, tablet, laptop, internet café.......

 

[atticman]

Also I wonder how all domestic and commercial modern technology would fair in a world war situation.
(and we will have another world war, of that I'm certain.)

Errrrrm..... if we have another World War, I think the fate of our photos and cine films etc will be the least of our worries!!!

 

[Flyfisher]

Currently, I see the best data storage of multiple gigabytes being blu-ray discs. Although I don't have one currently.

But the thing about blu-ray is that it's yet another physical form of media that has to be shuffled about, whereas a hard drive is permantently 'online' so there's no handling of separately disks required. Also, 50GB might be a useful size for storing photos or music but it's not very much when it comes to video, whereas even a £50 hard drive will store the equivalent of about 20 blu-ray disks.

Also, backing up a hard drive is a much easier operation (can even be completely automated) than doing the same for 20 blu-ray disks, meaning it's more likely to actually happen - an important consideration for data backups!.


As for cloud storage, I'd agree it can be useful for sharing a few files between varioius devices around the world, but I'd never rely on the cloud to store and backup all my 'stuff'.

I'd also question how cheap it is for backups. Most of the cloud storage I've seen is only free up to about 5GB. This is fine for documents and a few photos but is not really sufficient for entire multimedia libraries. I have about 400GB of 'stuff' and according this price comparison site the cheapest cloud storage would cost me £10 per month - not a great deal when I can buy a 1TB hard drive for £50.
http://www.cloudpricing.co.uk/results/home/400

Also for those of us not blessed with fibre broadband, a rough calculation suggests that downloading 400GB at 6Mbps would take a little over 6 days and uploading would takes well over a month.

 

[skier-hughes]

The blessing of fibre broadband and how many people keep their back ups on site? We've discussed this many times, but ten hard drives with all the same stuff along with blu ray discs etc all stored in the house will burn just as easily as the photos and video tapes!!
At least the cloud will make you keep a back up off site.

 

[Flyfisher]

Fair point about the cloud being off-site (assuming the data centre osting your stuff also has an off-site backup :wink: ), though a spare hard drive is pretty easy to store away from the house somewhere.

I'm envious of your fibre broadband though. Is that actually fibre to your house or to a roadside cabinet somewhere? What speed do you actually get in practice?

 

[wobs]

Currently, I see the best data storage of multiple gigabytes being blu-ray discs. Although I don't have one currently.

But the thing about blu-ray is that it's yet another physical form of media that has to be shuffled about, whereas a hard drive is permantently 'online' so there's no handling of separately disks required. Also, 50GB might be a useful size for storing photos or music but it's not very much when it comes to video, whereas even a £50 hard drive will store the equivalent of about 20 blu-ray disks.

Also, backing up a hard drive is a much easier operation (can even be completely automated) than doing the same for 20 blu-ray disks, meaning it's more likely to actually happen - an important consideration for data backups!.

I see discs are more for long term storage though, where you would do so as a one off. Eg. you have many gigabytes of photos, and are unlikely to edit them again. It would make sense to back them up on a disc for long term storage and keep them on a hard drive as well.

I agree that if the capacity of each disc results in us using 20 discs, then it won't happen. I envisage a day when I share the cost with my sister on some external disc writer that we can share for occasional back ups of large amounts of data, whether it is blu-ray, or some successor. But I'll have external hard drives for the foreseeable future.

The issue of capacity has been the same for many years ie. a new system comes out with a larger capacity, and a new file format comes along to fill it. And so we see 4k (and/or ultra HD) coming over the horizon for film buffs:
http://www.techradar.com/news/home-cinema/high-definition/ultra-hd-everything-you-need-to-know-about-4k-tv-1048954
http://gizmodo.com/5914426/the-first-cinema-resolution-movie-download-available-to-consumers-is-160gb-and-absolutely-breathtaking

 

[skier-hughes]

Fair point about the cloud being off-site (assuming the data centre osting your stuff also has an off-site backup :wink: ), though a spare hard drive is pretty easy to store away from the house somewhere.

I'm envious of your fibre broadband though. Is that actually fibre to your house or to a roadside cabinet somewhere? What speed do you actually get in practice?

No idea it's installed on 14th August

It'll be to the box, but line testing says I should get around 70Mb and 10Mb up. Alex has just had it installed in his Manchester flat and he gets 57 and 10 up.

My back up NAS is never moved from the house, when I do my office, I may get round to building a fireproof cabinet for it to sit in.

 

[Flyfisher]

Ah, so still asymmetric speeds then, but even so a nice step forward. No plans for availability here yet. Apparently our exchange is "under evaluation - exchange upgrade being evaluated as part of a government funded programme", so I'm not holding my breath!

I've wondered about NAS in a firesafe, but I think care would be needed to address possible overheating problems. Easy to implement though. How about a duplicate NAS in an outbuilding somewhere or a cellar perhaps? it's easy to become quite paranoid about data loss!

 

[Lime]

Also I wonder how all domestic and commercial modern technology would fair in a world war situation.
(and we will have another world war, of that I'm certain.)

Errrrrm..... if we have another World War, I think the fate of our photos and cine films etc will be the least of our worries!!!

My comment was stimulated by the 1000s of 35mm negatives in my possession, many of which were pre WW2, that had been taken by my father.
My father was killed when I was a child.
I digitalized them a couple of years ago and saw many of them in the positive for the first time.

 

[kreyszig]

for hard disk backup, devices like the ones here http://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-hardware/all/hard-drives-int/quickport-hdd-docks
are very useful. Just pop in a fresh HD, backup and take off site.

 

[skier-hughes]

Problem is Flyfisher, I think putting it (or a second) in the outhouse or log cabin would be much more likely to be stolen! Easy enough to rig up as we use powerline adaptors quite successfully for networking.

 

[Flyfisher]

Well, data security is a whole different subject, but with password-protected and/or encrypted files for personal data I'm not too concerned about having a hard drive stolen (assuming anyone would really bother).

But I'm sure a NAS drive could be fairly easily hidden away somewhere.

 

[skier-hughes]

It's more the fact the NAS was nearly a grand

 

[Flyfisher]

Ahh . . . . you bought a seriously good one then!

How about a concrete reinforced hole in the ground somewhere with a big steel lockable lid? :wink: