

Whats the best way to take backup? - abhishekdesai

I was thinking of taking backup of various videos and pictures of my new born daughter and storing it in a external USB harddisk or probably in time capsule. But what is the guaranty they will still be supported after 20-25 years when we actually need it? Just the way floppy disks and various other storage devices are dead today USB or timecapsule may be dead soon. What is the best way to take backup of those precious moments then? Have you faced similar situation? or am I thinking too out of the box?
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gaius
No-one really has a good solution to this at the moment. One thing you _can't_
do is try to do this passively, i.e. by making one and then stashing it
somewhere. You need to keep it online, back it up regularly with the rest of
your data (I use a 1T Apple Time Capsule for my first-stage backups) and just
keep migrating forwards as you upgrade to larger storage solutions. This does
mean some ongoing work on your part, and it rests on the assumption that
someone will have created a truly permanent storage media before you die (or
that you train your kids to keep on doing it).

There _are_ two easily available media that are known to endure with no active
involvement if stored correctly, and will always be accessible no matter what
the prevailing technological environment: B&W film and acid-free paper.
Everything else is up in the air at the moment.

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abhishekdesai
I see your point here. Upgradation to new backup devices is a solution for
now. Thanks.

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qhoxie
I would say you are thinking about it a bit too much. If you are really
concerned about future support, store it on two or more types of media (flash,
DVD, etc) and then it is more likely to be retrievable.

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MikeW
I've found that optical media like CD-Rs and DVD-Rs corrode over time. Many of
the CD-Rs I burned over the last 7 years are unreadable now. Different media
seems to degrade at different speeds. Beware of burning a DVD, storing it away
for 10 years and trying to read it then.

