Best Storage for long term storage?

[BiscuitMassacre]

My Mom takes a lot of pictures and videos. Right now she buys a 64GB SD Card every month. And then either burns the data onto a CD or just keeps it on card and puts it into a safe. She wants her data to "last till the day she dies". What would be the best option? I suggested to get an external HDD, but those things only last 5 years max. And not only is getting SD Cards expensive, its also pretty unsafe right? I think her best bet would be to get a RAID 1 external bay and then when one of the HDDs dies she buys a new one. Thoughts?

[BestPCBuilder2017]

Have you brought up the topic of archiving data? There might be some storage solutions that might be of interest. 

[EPPHO]

SSD?

[LienusLateTips]

Tape drive via Amazon glacier.

[tlink]

there are metal based blueray(or dvd) disks that are way more robust than organic based disks specifically meant for archiving. its called mdisc. they are meant to last a 1000 years i thought. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-DISC

[BestPCBuilder2017]

M-Disc is an option, but I'm not sure if you're interested in it. Personally, I generally stay away from optical media unless I absolutely have to. 

[BestPCBuilder2017]

Just now, tlink said:

there are metal based blueray(or dvd) disks that are way more robust than organic based disks specifically meant for archiving. its called mdisk. they are meant to last a 1000 years i thought. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-DISC

they're made of metal wtf? 

[tlink]

Just now, NCIX Lampy said:

they're made of metal wtf? 

normal disks are made of an organic dye layer that the laser burns away, this makes them very vulnerable to anything in contrast to an anorganic material.

 

[Enderman]

Tape drive?

CDs are pretty good tbh, those will last til she dies if they are kept in a good place.

[pxnguinPr3]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/External-Devices-Data-Storage/Seagate-Personal-Cloud-Home-Media-NAS-Black/B00U8X9ZVY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497037260&sr=8-1&keywords=seagate+nas

[tlink]

2 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Tape drive?

CDs are pretty good tbh, those will last til she dies if they are kept in a good place.

they're a gamble just like floppy's. if they get moist once they are ruined forever. same for tape storage, they require a very specific storage environment which just isn't practical for consumers.

[BestPCBuilder2017]

Just now, Enderman said:

Tape drive?

CDs are pretty good tbh, those will last til she dies if they are kept in a good place.

Oh yeah! Can't those store like 150 fricken TB or something? 

[Phentos]

Optical media WILL get scratches over time, no matter how careful you are.

 

SD cards are not considered reliable for archival storage.

 

Your best bet is backing up weekly disk images of all the pictures on their own partition on a RAID 1 array and back up the images on the cloud.

 

Hard drives will last for a decade or more if they are only used very lightly. RAID 1 and offsite backups will allow you to swap out drives as needed.

 

A good alternative is tape drive archiving with a company that offers it.

[Mira Yurizaki]

HDDs are expected to last 5 years only if they're a consumer grade product and you constantly use them. If you take them offline, as long as they pass the initial SIDS period, they should be fine for a very long time.

 

For personal archival, you could get archival grade DVDs like https://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-UltraLife-Archival-50-Disc-95355/dp/B000H3B6EO. Tape drives if you really want to go that route, but that requires extra (probably expensive) equipment.

 

Otherwise shove it to the cloud.

[Ryujin2003]

13 minutes ago, frozeNNN said:

SSD?

No, not for long term. SSD is flash technology, and needs power to keep the electronic charge in capacitors. Without power source, electrons die, and data is lost. Generally, magnetic disk is much more viable as a long term storage option.

15 minutes ago, BiscuitMassacre said:

My Mom takes a lot of pictures and videos. Right now she buys a 64GB SD Card every month. And then either burns the data onto a CD or just keeps it on card and puts it into a safe. She wants her data to "last till the day she dies". What would be the best option? I suggested to get an external HDD, but those things only last 5 years max. And not only is getting SD Cards expensive, its also pretty unsafe right? I think her best bet would be to get a RAID 1 external bay and then when one of the HDDs dies she buys a new one. Thoughts?

I would look at cloud storage and off network mechanical storage. I would even go full analog and print them out and store them properly.

[BiscuitMassacre]

22 minutes ago, frozeNNN said:

SSD?

No

19 minutes ago, JDE said:

Tape drive via Amazon glacier.

way to expensive.

17 minutes ago, tlink said:

there are metal based blueray(or dvd) disks that are way more robust than organic based disks specifically meant for archiving. its called mdisc. they are meant to last a 1000 years i thought. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-DISC

Not a gimmic?

22 minutes ago, NCIX Lampy said:

Have you brought up the topic of archiving data? There might be some storage solutions that might be of interest. 

Whats the difference?

14 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Tape drive?

CDs are pretty good tbh, those will last til she dies if they are kept in a good place.

You sure?

 

 

[LienusLateTips]

15 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Tape drive?

CDs are pretty good tbh, those will last til she dies if they are kept in a good place.

My post above.

[LienusLateTips]

1 minute ago, BiscuitMassacre said:

way to expensive.

 

https://aws.amazon.com/glacier/

Quote

$0.004/GB/Month

 

[BiscuitMassacre]

@JDE

.0004 per gig? Dang. How secure is it?

 

And can you explain a little more about glacier? 

[tlink]

4 minutes ago, BiscuitMassacre said:

.0004 per gig? Dang. How secure is it?

keep in mind you pay a pretty hefty fee for accessing the data. and you can't just scroll trough them, you have to order them. they are basically being held ransom and you pay for every time you add data i thought. it isn't meant to be a dynamically growing platform from what i understand.

http://blender.ca/aws-glacier-calculator/

[BiscuitMassacre]

4 minutes ago, tlink said:

keep in mind you pay a pretty hefty fee for accessing the data. and you can't just scroll trough them, you have to order them. they are basically being held ransom  

Yeah i don't think that is what she wants.

[Monkey Dust]

The M-Discs above should work, or archival grade HHDs. Though whatever you go for having it stored in more than one place is important.

 

Another important consideration for long term storage is obsolescence of the physical medial and the file formats. You will need to revisit the data every 5 years, or so, to check that you'll be able to easily read it in another 5 years. And if it look like you may not, move it to a different format while you still can easily and cheaply.      

[tlink]

Just now, Monkey Dust said:

The M-Discs above should work, or archival grade HHDs. Though whatever you go for having it stored in more than one place is important.

 

Another important consideration for long term storage is obsolescence of the physical medial and the file formats. You will need to revisit the data every 5 years, or so, to check that you'll be able to easily read it in another 5 years. And if it look like you may not, move it to a different format while you still can easily and cheaply.      

best is to use multiple formats on different disks, and including a program that can open it can be a massive help since now you don't have to scourge the future internet for it. even in 5 years it can be hard but running a program shouldn't be a big problem.

[BiscuitMassacre]

1 minute ago, tlink said:

best is to use multiple formats on different disks, and including a program that can open it can be a massive help since now you don't have to scourge the future internet for it. even in 5 years it can be hard but running a program shouldn't be a big problem.

I think that may be a little advanced for her.

[Enderman]

32 minutes ago, tlink said:

they're a gamble just like floppy's. if they get moist once they are ruined forever. same for tape storage, they require a very specific storage environment which just isn't practical for consumers.

CDs are pretty durable, just store them in a dry pace and it's good.

It won't degrade over time or anything, at least not in 50 years.