This year I had to break bad news to a few relatives who asked me for help recovering their lost music, photos, videos, and other data.
I have little sympathy for those who didn’t even make backups. But I do feel sorry for those people who back up their information to media that turns out to be unreadable a few years down the road.
If you want to hang onto your important memories, consider the advice below.
Most people are not even aware that recordable CDs and DVDs become unreliable over time. Pre-recorded CDs and DVDs are manufactured by “stamping” the data into the plastic, which is then coated with a thin, reflective, metal film. But recordable discs have a dye layer which sits over a reflective metal film surface, and when a disk is “burned”, the write laser chemically alters the dye. The read laser can then read in the ones and zeros in the data based on whether the dye was altered by the write laser. The problem the dye that is not burned by the write laser will also become transparent over time when exposed to light and perhaps other elements.
That stack of fifty CD-R’s that you bought for $15 at Staples is fine for sharing files, and storing for the short term (a few years). But you’re probably setting yourself up for heartbreak if you think your backups of your precious photos, music, and video onto those cheap discs are going to be there the next time you want to enjoy listening or watching them.
Use Archival Quality Recordable Media
My bootleg-addicted brother is building a collection of great music that he’s gathered around the Internet, but he was dismayed to learn that in less than five years, he may have nothing more than a large collection of coasters. He recently switched to using archival media
David Pogue advises that you should use the “gold” discs which will not degrade like the run-of-the-mill recordable discs.
But as I understand it, it isn’t the gold reflective surface that you need to concern yourself with. It’s the photo-sensitive dye that is used that matters most. Cyanine dye tends to be the least stable, and more prone to fading relatively quickly. If the discs are left exposed to sunlight, your data will be unrecoverable in a short amount of time. Some manufacturers now add stabilizers to the dye to extend it’s lifetime, but it’s still not the best choice.
Phthalocyanine dye is stable, and this is what is typically used in the “archival quality” discs. Some manufacturers claim they’ll last 300. I doubt it, but mostly what I really care about is whether or not they’ll last fifty years. Because I suspect my kids will want to transfer them to whatever improved storage options, like Google’s Intergalactic Storage Cloud. Wikipedia has some good info on the different types of discs.
Use a Good Burner
If you’re burner (writer) is not reliable, then it doesn’t even matter what kind of media you’re using. Make sure that you get a high quality burner
If anybody knows of any good test results on current drives to help readers make a choice, put a link into the comments.
Just be sure that you buy a respected brand, try to find devices that have positive user reviews, and don’t buy cheap (or it will cost you in the long run).
Store in a Dark, Cool, Dry Place
UV rays and other strong light will cause the dye to fade quickly. So store the CDs and DVDs in a dark place. Don’t use clear jewel boxes. Store them in a binder
Back Up Your Backups
If your media is really important to you, make two copies of everything, and store one of them in a different location so that if there is a fire and all is lost in one location, you have it in another.
Additionally, consider using an off-site, Internet-based backup solution. Just be sure you don’t leave all of your eggs in one basket.
If you have backup copies using the inexpensive media mentioned earlier, consider making copies of those discs onto more expensive archival media ASAP.
I am a huge fan of SyncBackSE for backing up to external drives, Internet backups (using FTP) and more.
Keep Your Media Library as Small as You Can
In these digital media days, it’s easy to shoot a few hundred pictures at your kids’ events and on a vacation. Shooting a lot is a good strategy for getting better pictures too, since it increases the likelihood of capturing something great. I recall advice from a photographer who said that you must be “ruthless” in culling images that are anything less than perfect. If you have an emotional attachment to your subjects, you may want to save every half-decent photo of them. But a huge pile of images and video clips will become quite unmanageable, and if you don’t have a snowballs chance in hell of being able to back them up, then you won’t. No backup means that you’ll eventually lose it all. So be ruthless and save only the best images and clips, so that you can easily back them up.
New Years Resolutions
- Buy some archival recordable DVDs
- Delete 90-95% of my images
- Burn a fresh backup of what remains
- Double-check my SyncBack profiles to make sure I’m getting everything backed up that should be backed up
See also: A previous post on backing up your memories.
