<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body>
<p>I agree.</p>
<p>Up to about 10 years ago, I used to do regular archival backups
to DVD. I waited until I had roughly 4.5GB of data to get off the
harddisk, then prepared and burnt a DVD, made a file listing of
it, and put it away.</p>
<p>Long story short: It was a mess.</p>
<p>First the actual burning process was always an extra task and it
was "final" so I delayed it far too long because it needed to be
"perfect" (regarding labeling, ordering and sorting out what to
actually archive).<br>
Then I noticed the DVD discs started to deterioate after ~5 years,
far sooner than everybody said, and read errors occured, and I
started making two copies of all DVDs, and regularly testing them,
which was a huge amount of work.<br>
Then actually *finding* a photo turned out to be much more
difficult than I thought, with filenames being non-unique and
metadata search not properly working across multiple offline
media.<br>
And finally, there's the price. One DVD is cheap, but 8GB of data
today is just about 1000 JPG images with today's cameras. You'll
need a LOT of DVDs long term.<br>
</p>
<p>I am now using a 1TB SSD ($50) in the PC to keep my complete
image collection online (around 360GB as of now), and do a daily
incremental encrypted backup of all images and the rest of my
$HOME directory to a NAS using <a
href="https://borgbackup.readthedocs.io/en/stable/">BorgBackup</a>,
which works like a charm and just takes a few minutes after the
initial full backup. You could also use online storage, you can
get 1TB for as low as $6 a month. Or better yet, both (follow the
3-2-1 rule).<br>
</p>
<p>I bought the NAS 13 years ago to do backups. It has two harddisks
which are in a mirroring RAID setup, and so far I have had to
replace a failing harddisk twice - both times without data loss
and with minimum fuss; rebuliding a RAID array takes time, but is
completely automated.<br>
</p>
<p>My take: Don't use DVDs for archival purposes. When (not if) they
rot, your data is gone and you might not even notice.<br>
</p>
<p>:-)</p>
<p>Jens<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Am 24.02.24 um 19:03 schrieb James Orr:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:SA1P222MB01836F4D57CA354FE582998EEA542@SA1P222MB0183.NAMP222.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<div dir="auto">I generally agree with the cautions in this
thread. Especially with the need for redundancy. My workflow
includes storing all my images on a Win 11 workstation to
mirrored 3TB HDDs. I make daily incremental + monthly full
backup to NAS. I worry about losing the corpus to a sudden
disaster and don't have a solution yet. Uploading to the cloud
seems<span> to be too slow to be practical, and no family is
nearby.</span><span></span></div>
<div dir="auto">However, the basic truth<span> is that the best
archival storage for photographs is an excellent print on
archival media. The only tech needed to view the output is
available light and functional eyes.</span></div>
<div dir="auto"><span><br>
</span></div>
<div dir="auto"><span>All digital media are evanescent. Have you
recently tried to access images from a 5.25" SSFD? Who knows
what will be here 40 years<span> from now.</span></span></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div id="ms-outlook-mobile-signature" dir="auto">James Orr </div>
<hr style="display:inline-block;width:98%" tabindex="-1">
<div id="divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font style="font-size:11pt"
face="Calibri, sans-serif" color="#000000"><b>From:</b>
Digikam-users <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:digikam-users-bounces@kde.org"><digikam-users-bounces@kde.org></a> on behalf
of Art Zemon <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:art@zemon.name"><art@zemon.name></a><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Saturday, February 24, 2024 8:59:49 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:digikam-users@kde.org">digikam-users@kde.org</a> <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:digikam-users@kde.org"><digikam-users@kde.org></a><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: Archive photos to DVD</font>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div>
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="x_gmail_default"
style="font-family:georgia,serif; font-size:small; color:rgb(0,0,0)">
<span
style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color:rgb(34,34,34)">On
Sat, Feb 24, 2024 at 8:41 AM Kjetil Kjernsmo <<a
href="mailto:kjetil@kjernsmo.net"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">kjetil@kjernsmo.net</a>>
wrote:</span><br>
</div>
</div>
<div class="x_gmail_quote">
<blockquote class="x_gmail_quote"
style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204); padding-left:1ex">
Hi!<br>
<br>
On fredag 23. februar 2024 02:43:56 CET Mark wrote:<br>
> Since the image files have been burned to one or
more disks (of the same<br>
> name) they can then be deleted from the hard drive to
make room for more.<br>
<br>
Without really answering your question, I would challenge
the workflow. </blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div class="x_gmail_default"
style="font-family:georgia,serif; font-size:small; color:rgb(0,0,0)">
Also be aware that the DVDs that you can burn at home have
a limited lifespan. They vary a lot, from as little as 20
years to maybe 100 or more. See <a
href="https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/cds-truth-cddvd-longevity-mold-rot/"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/cds-truth-cddvd-longevity-mold-rot/</a>
for some detailed info.</div>
<div class="x_gmail_default"
style="font-family:georgia,serif; font-size:small; color:rgb(0,0,0)">
<br>
</div>
<div class="x_gmail_default"
style="font-family:georgia,serif; font-size:small; color:rgb(0,0,0)">
You might consider making digiKam collections on removable
media, whether DVDs or SSDs or spinning hard drives. Once
you have created the collection, you can just drag 'n'
drop some albums onto it to make a backup. Then remember
to refresh/replace the backup media every decade or so.</div>
<div class="x_gmail_default"
style="font-family:georgia,serif; font-size:small; color:rgb(0,0,0)">
<br>
</div>
<div class="x_gmail_default"
style="font-family:georgia,serif; font-size:small; color:rgb(0,0,0)">
-- Art Z.</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
<span class="x_gmail_signature_prefix">-- </span><br>
<div dir="ltr" class="x_gmail_signature">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">
<div><font face="georgia, serif">My
blog: <a
href="https://CheerfulCurmudgeon.com/" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">CheerfulCurmudgeon.com</a></font></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr"><i
style="color:rgb(34,34,34); font-family:georgia,serif"><span
style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"></span></i><i
style="color:rgb(34,34,34); font-family:georgia,serif"><span
style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">In
a place where there are no
humans, strive to be human.
[Pirkei Avot 2:5]</span></i></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Regards, Jens</pre>
</body>
</html>