Graphics forum: Best way to back up digital photos

you have. CD-Rs are the most basic choice. Next up is DVDs. If you use either of these, be sure to use high quality disks and store them properly. Photo stores are beginning to carry archival disks for just this purpose. The next step up is some sort of hard drive. Many use an external device which is connected via USB. If the computer's hard drive fails, the photos will still be on the external drive.

You should always maintain at least two copies of your photos. For example, one set on your computer's hard drive, and a duplicate stored on CD-R. You should never risk having just one copy of your photos.

that's one of the things hard drives do for us. The bet is that it won't fail at the same time as the computer's internal hard drive. Therefore, the data will survive on one of the two drives.

Any storage device can fail. That's why you should always have at least two copies of everything.

I haven't seen anything regarding the testing of DVD longevity. There was some stuff on CDs that listed Taiyo Yuden (sp?) as one of the best. I have since heard that Taiyo Yuden is good if it was manufactured in Japan. How you know that is a mystery to me. I do have some Taiyo Yuden gold. The brand name, if you believe it, is MAM-A. It sounds like a bargain basement special. I have both DVDs and CDs made by Taiyo Yuden, and use those for backup. I'm guessing that, if their CD is good, their DVD will also be good.

The government does not disclose which brands do well, and which do not. In tests I've looked at more closely in the past, some name brands do well and some do not. One of the factors is that many of the 'name' brands do not make their own disks. Thus, the identification of Taiyo Yuden (sp?) is a top source. Although some disks like MAM-A are theirs, it is hard to tell which 'brands' are using their disks.

They are a fairly well known 'secret' on the web. I'm surprised you are not familiar with the earlier, and fairly extensive, research.

Thanks for the links and information.

-Kevin