Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Bob Michaels" 
<bob@b...> wrote:
>  Except I swear by
> external hard drives. When they're nearing the end of their 
technical
> life cycle, you just copy the ENTIRE thing at one time over to
> whatever media is being used in the future. 

Who do you mean by "you"?

Almost everyone is thi discussion is overlooking the first poster's 
PREMISE:

He wants something to leave behind when he's gone so it will 
be "easy" for people in the future to see his images.

I'm saying that any solution requires that someone with technical 
skill have to actively convert his files on a regular basis to some 
new format (AND guess right about what the new format should be!) 
fails the "easy" test.   And what if that custodian huesses WRONG?  
Suppose ha had converted it to a Travan-3 tape or an Iomega Jazz 
drive?   The next person to inherit the data would have to go to a 
computer museum (or at least have nontrivial technical skill) to 
recover it.

Also N.B. that magnetic media such as tape, hard drives, floppies, 
etc, lose half their flux strength every 10 years, if they are stored 
under ideal conditions.   So it's not archival.  (from a published 
study by 3M)