Digital BW, The Print

Bob Michaels 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 ....

I think there might be some confusion here between "back up" and
"archive". While additional external hard drives are dandy back up, I
think they are a terrible choice for archiving. For one thing, the
reason for backing up a hard drive is that hard drives fail! Routinely
and inevitably. And when it goes, it ALL goes. They are a magnetic
medium which always deteriorates with time. If they aren't fired up
periodically, the lubes gunk up.  
   For long term preservation of digital info, the present hands down
choice, IMstudiedO, is DVD, with its data layer robustly sandwiched in
plastic. (And then multiple copies stored in geographically remote
armored hermetic environments<G>, but start with DVDs.)