Other issues are in-memory corruption. Again, back in the days before computer price wars, all computer RAM had parity bits. These days only server grade products do this. So if you’re a Mac user and worried about this, get a Mac Pro, they have all ECC RAM that fights that aspect of the problem.

Between zfs with a RAID-5 zpool and ECC RAM, things are pretty good on the “silent corruption” side of things. Obviously, you’ll still need off-site backup to cover local catastrophic failure (fire, flood, EMP, etc.) Low-grade replacement for off-site backup are uploads to sites like flickr, but it’s better than nothing. Ideally, have a few hundred GB worth of web space and a backup software that’s capable of using WebDAV or ftp as a backup target.

If all these are not enough to save your pictures, you’re likely having more important issues to worry about…

I recommend what I call backup in depth:
-Backup all files every night to a local USB or FireWire hard drive/array for rapid restores if your main drive dies
-Backup all documents/images/movies to DVD every 3-6 months and store in a cool, dark place. This protects against silent data corruption that occurs after the backup.
-Purchase a remote backup service such as Carbonite or Mozy that offer unlimited storage for ~$50/yr. This protects against local catastrophes. Sadly, neither does a very good job with Macs today, but I’m sure they will get there.

Thanks for the link to Storage Bits.

Robin

You are right, film can fade or spoil — but the point of the post is that the vast majority of my older negatives are still in excellent condition. With proper storage, most of my negatives and slides will out live me.

The thing about the CERN study is that data on hard drives can become corrupt with out warning. So having backup hard drives locked away might not protect your images. And the entire drive may not fail — just certain sectors. If your priceless image happens to be stored on that sector.. you better have a good backup. Data corruption happens, and I would be pretty miserable if I lost important images.

I wanted to drive home the importance of multiple backups and the fact that hard drives may not be the best storage medium for archival digital storage.

DAT tapes might be the way to go, but so many people prefer backing up to a hard drive or CD that tape drives haven’t come down in price the way hard drives have. There was a time when tape drives were about the same price or even cheaper than hard drives. Due to high demand, the price of a HD has fallen dramatically, while the slower selling tape drives haven’t come down in price at all.

Maybe when the general public come around to the notion that DAT tape is much better at storing archival data, sales will increase and the prices will come down.

Thanks for sharing your opinion

– Tom