Photo Tips: Storage Media costs and discussion

[AndyJ]

(Comments, corrections and additions welcome - anyone want to add Flash memory?)


Mini-DV - 10p / GB

Pro’s:
Best SD footage
Easy to pickup spare tapes
Tapes have approximately a 10 year lifespan, depending on use

Con’s:
Not the Best for HD Footage, HD based AVCHD is better than MiniDV Mpeg2.
Magnetic Media can degrade if poorly stored.
Tapes can snap, drop frames and behave badly if used cross manufacturer (IE a Sony recorded tape put in a Canon to playback.)


DVD’s - 3p / GB

Pro’s:
Cheap as chips
Works in all compatible hardware with few problems

Con’s:
Have a 5-15 year life on average, depending on brand and storage. Some can last much longer.
Takes a long time to back up footage relative to a HDD or Website


Hard Drives - 11p / GB (Based on a £118.52 TB Drive)

Pro’s:
You can easily always edit and access your footage
Quickest media to backup a HDD based camera

Con’s:
HDD’s fail in time, with an average of about 5 years, depending on use.


WebSite - 28p / GB (Based on 5 years)

Pro’s:
If chosen well, professional backups and redundancy will keep your material very safe.
You can backup your footage from your holiday prior to leaving
Can be accessed from any computer

Con’s:
Payment issues could cause data to be deleted
ISP Negligence could cause data to be lost

[jeanwales]

I store mine on hard drives and as they fill up I buy a bigger one which comes down in price all the time and add the previous hard drive on it so in effect I have all my photos double backed up lol!

[georgemac]

I have my photos trebled up at least on hard drives!

Wonder if the typical life of a hard drive quoted by Andy is dependant on use - I have a drive I only keep photos on and it is only powered up when adding new ones.

[robpat]

I use a combination of technologies to try and limit the risk of losing my precious photos. I have a 'live' set of all photos on my laptop, a copy of all photos on a removable hard disk, a Windows backup of all my important data (including photos) on another hard disk, and a set of photos online with Flickr.

It seems massive overkill but I don't find it too hard to manage. Whenever I load photos on to my laptop I put a copy on Flickr straight away. The other backups are more ad-hoc and are probably done 4 - 6 times a year (normally after a holiday or birthday).

So I need 3 hard disks to fail and Flickr to go bust for me to lose my photos

What's that on the news ... breaking story of an Internet photo storage company going out of business ... and can I smell burning from my laptop ... keep that magnet away from those disks!

[AndyJ]

Originally Posted by georgemac

Wonder if the typical life of a hard drive quoted by Andy is dependant on use - I have a drive I only keep photos on and it is only powered up when adding new ones.

See more...

Almost certainly I will reword above slightly.

I have HD's that have lasted over 10 years, but some that haven't made a year. Most notable failures have been IBM Deskstar drives, which my friends and I have nicknamed DeathStars.

Although it has to be said that most electrical equipment fails when it is powered up after not being used for some time.

A.

[georgemac]

I have bought some Verbatim DVD's as I read they were excellent quality, so this trip home I will be backing up photos to these, and to my several hard drives!

I also had a dvd-ram drive and a fair number of dvd-ram disks, anyone know if these are any more reliable or have a longer life than standard dvd's?

[DIBBadmin]

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