[Bob 256]

Thumb-drives and camera cards use the same technology. Both are not long term solutions since errors can start to occur at the 10 year span (or sooner depending on how much the media is used and how it is stored). The best long term storage to date is the M disc, however that's a write-once media so it may not meet all needs. The best approach otherwise is as mentioned - keep several copies on different media and store that media properly (cool conditions in general), and copy it to new media periodically. Unfortunately, the latter approach is counter to human nature as we tend to put things away and forget them. Personally, I rely on SD cards until they are full and then transfer to M-discs for archival storage. DVD M disc media is almost bullet-proof while Blu-Ray M disc media is just certified Blu-Ray media (which has fairly good archival qualities in single layer version).

An interesting fact - all Hubble telescope imagery is archived on hard drives (RAID) at three different locations in case a local disaster happens. It is periodically backed up on new drives. There is some 140 GB of data collected each week (avg) so go figure.

That's my 2 cents for what it's worth.

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Last edited by Bob 256; 06-21-2019 at 01:47 PM.

[tibbitts]

I use 2.5in external hard drives, 3 of them, that I rotate between locations. The "master" is currently kept on my oldest drive, a 3.5in external. I have disposed of my 1tb drives because they're too small to hold all my data. The 2gb drives are approaching full. 2 of my drives are 3tb, they are my largest currently. I would not split data over multiple drives (not referring to RAID - I mean one year's data on one drive, another on another drive, etc.)... it's too complicated. I would always want single devices large enough to hold all my data. I don't have a fast enough internet connection to make cloud storage practical yet, although I'm sure that will be a more effective option for more people in the future.

I would not use a thumb drive for (semi?) permanent storage, partly because they're too small for my data at this point.

[photolady95]

That's what I do. I don't trust thumb drives as too many times they've gone bad or the computer refuses to read them.

So I use external hard drives, two 1tb so far, but I have stored photos on DVD and check to make sure they're still holding up about every six months