I'm trying to figure out the best way to store family photos and videos for the rest of my life (you know, in case I ever have kids!). I've got a gaming PC, so I'll likely need to use external drives or readers. Most of my media is currently on the cloud, but I've also got some old hard drives that really need to be transferred to something more reliable.
I'm looking for a medium that's good for write-once, read-many scenarios. I've been considering M-Disc, but I heard production has stopped. Is Blu-ray a solid alternative or should I explore other options? I'm worried about hard drives failing since they'll probably sit unused for long stretches but might get pulled out now and then. I feel like Blu-ray could be the best choice, but if I need to refresh data every few years, I might end up with no discs left to buy. Any thoughts?
5 Answers
Here's the lowdown: if you want your data to last a lifetime, you’ve got to be ready to move it to new media every so often. It’s no good if your data is on a pristine disc but you can’t find a drive that reads it anymore!
I’ve got my family photos stored on a RAID NAS with ZFS, and I also back them up to the cloud. I definitely trust an actively scrubbed NAS more than any writable media like Blu-rays or DVDs.
I keep my main photo storage on my gaming rig (7TB SSD) and I back everything up on two separate 1TB USB drives. One of them is kept off-site just in case, plus I back my important documents up on the same drives in PDF format.
M-Disc Blu-rays or DVDs are great options. They’re stable and claim to last up to 1000 years. I trust them way more than hard drives or cloud storage for long-term storage.
For the real long-term storage, I’d recommend tape. It’s not cheap and pretty rare, but it works. Otherwise, just make multiple copies across several hard drives. I’ve had 4TB Hitachis last over 8 years. Store them in a dry place, like a ziplock bag, and they can last decades! Just remember to refresh the data every 5 years.
I think Blu-ray discs will be more commonly readable in 50 years than tape media will be. Libraries and older technology will likely still support them.
True, tape drives can be pricey, but the tapes themselves are actually pretty affordable. Just be careful about storage conditions like heat and humidity!