On 12/14/06, lea murphy <lea@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: [snip]
I used to burn them to dvd but I had two discs fail so gave up that method as a way of archiving. So my comment is this: I used to think it was absolutely necessary to keep two and sometimes three copies of client files on various hard drives but it occured to me that when I was shooting film I didn't run around making copy negs of those images just to have a backup. Why do we drive ourselves nuts having multiple copies of digital files? I know hard drives fail. I also know darkrooms flood and houses burn. What do you guys think of this? One copy and take our chances...just like in the old days with film.
Film was much more stable than magnetic storage is; one copy on film was much safer than one copy on a hard drive is today. Furthermore, we didn't have any real *choice* then, and we do now. I've never had a house fire or significant flood (more than an inch in the basement); I've had lots of hard drive errors and total failures. And the hard drive failures are over a much smaller chunk of my life (home hard-drives not having been part of the picture for the first 30 years or some such of my life). I've currently got all my digital photos (except the ones I shot last night) on three hard drives and two sets of optical media (mixed DVD and CD, depending on when written and the size of the batch). One of the sets of optical media is stored offsite. -- David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:dd-b@xxxxxxxx>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/> RKBA: <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/> Pics: <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/> Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/>
