Digital BW, The Print

I store my portfolios on the most archival CD's (Kodak Digital Science until
my stock ran out - discontinued) on the theory they stand the best chance of
lasting until it's time to migrate data.  In my day job, we are moving to
optical storage.  One of my partners has taken on the research and hiring of
consultants, but we are hearing that there is an approximate five-year max
between media changes, so that the DVD's and their backups will be migrated
to ? every five years or less.  I will be interested to watch this process,
since it appears to be based on faith that each technology change will allow
migration, e.g., client files that must last for decades.  One thing's for
sure - no one is going to save any money with digital.  I just learned the
software for the scanners will cost $18,000!!

Regards,

  --Ken Carney
    www.kencarney.com


----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Nelson" <peter@...>
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2003 1:29 PM
Subject: [Digital BW] Re: Archiving digital prints


> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, scott lanes
> <scott@l...> wrote:
> > At 03:12 PM 4/17/2003 +0200, you wrote:
> > >I'm going for eternity - everything
> > >less is unacceptable..:-)
> >
> >
> > You better get back to film then ;-) , all current digital media
> (including
> > CDR) begins degrading as soon as it is produced. They have made
> great
> > strides in recent years, but current technologies will only keep
> your data
> > safe for a couple decades (which is fine for most work anyway).
>
> It's not just the technology; it's also the standards.  Even
> if CD-R's themselves are good for 50 years, it's unlikely
> you'll be able to find a PC that can read them in another
> 10 or 15 years.
>
> Historically, PC storage standards overlap for about one
> technological generation.  5.25" floppies and 8" floppies
> coexisted for a few years.  Then 3.5" floppies came out
> and 8" floppies went away.   When CD-R's came out they
> coexisted with 3.5" floppies but 5.25" floppies were gone.
> Now many PC makers are discontinuing 3.5" floppies and
> just using CD-R's, and writable DVD's are starting to
> appear.  Current DVD drives can read CD-R's but whatever
> replaces DVD in a few years probably won't.  Etc.
> Furthermore file and image format standards also change.
>
> The ONLY archiving strategy for digital is constant
> vigilance - you have to carefully watch technological
> trends and make sure to copy/convert your archive to
> whatever the Next Big Thing is before it's too late.
> If you get sick or die or lose interest you need to
> be sure that whoever inherits your files has the skill
> and interest to keep maintaining this.
>
> I have Kodachrome slides from the 1940's that have been
> shuffled from one family member to another in a shoebox.
> They still look good today.   If these had been digital
> files the various successions of uncles, aunts, brothers,
> etc, would never have had the skills or awareness to
> do file and data conversions over the decades so these
> images would have been lost.
>
>
>
>
>
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