Where do you store your photos?

[John_SD]

For some time, I have been concerned about proper long-term storage of my photos -- the ones that mean something to me. If you beleve like me, that photos capture a time and place in our lives and that you'd like future generations of your family to have access to them, then you begin thinking in terms of storage options.

I myself don't have any faith that any of these companies will be around 40 or 50 years from now, or that today's hardware solutions will be viable. CDs and such? They are on their way out already. Flickr (or any other Yahoo offshoot)? Don't make me laugh. Dropbox? Let's talk about it 25 years from now. SmugMug? Get real. Google Drive? Please. 

All of them are fine, for now. I stash mine on Google Photos, also a temporary solution at best. But my photos that really mean something to me, I print.

Thus, I am using the only tried and true storage and retrtieval "device" that has stood the test of time. That is the photo album. Don't laugh. I have family photo albums chock full of black-and-whites from the early 1930s onward. And I am **bleep** glad I have them. There is no hardware to fail. No company to pull the plug. No technology that will fall by the wayside. For many, photo albums may be a thing of the past. For me, they contain generations of my family.

What about for you? Where do you store the photos that mean the most to you?

[Waddizzle]

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@cicopo wrote:

I gave up using "back up" software for a similar reason. I plain & simply make copies on my USB drives, & when a desktop drive fills up I print a screen grab of it's contents which goes into the box that drive ends up in on my shelf. The box comes from the new drive I replaced it with. Too many copies is better than no file.  

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If you use Microsoft Windows, then I suggest that you give SyncToy are look.  It’s free.  It’s fast.  I use it to run “batch” backups to multiple locations when I import photos from a camera.

[shadowsports]

I use an 8TB NAS that is backed up locally.  I also use Amazon Photos and Google Drive.     

Back up software is good for disaster recovery, Acronis, Macrium (windows guy)

[Fernando2]

On lots of hard drives. 

[wq9nsc]

For the really long-term storage that a lot of people are talking about you had better also keep converting the image files themselves to something that is compatible in that period of time.  50 years from now your heirs definitely aren't going to be able to use current generation RAW files or jpg format.  This is where "data" that is already suitable for human viewing becomes important-the printed image being a prime example of that human compatible data.

I have no issue restoring and keeping in operating condition vintage complex communications (i.e. shortwave) receivers from the early 1930s and you could try to extrapolate that to leaving your heirs one of the "electronic photo frames" but especially with the removal of lead to comply with European RoHS standards custom integrated circuits from the modern era aren't going to have anywhere near the life of a 1930s era vacuum tube and there won't be any practical workarounds for your hobbyist great great grandson to repair the old family digital picture frame.  The old engineering adage of KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) is a strong consideration when preserving something for extended periods of time and the more complex the "solution" the more potential points of failure that exist.

Today if your great uncle's safe yielded a copy of your complete faimily history on 8" hard sector floppy disks you could find someone who could extract the information but 50 years or more into the future a lot of our current file formats will likely be useless and that old cloud data will present you with the future version of the  current "I don't recognize that file, what app would you like to use" message.

Rodger

[John_SD]

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@wq9nsc wrote:

Today if your great uncle's safe yielded a copy of your complete faimily history on 8" hard sector floppy disks you could find someone who could extract the information but 50 years or more into the future a lot of our current file formats will likely be useless and that old cloud data will present you with the future version of the  current "I don't recognize that file, what app would you like to use" message.

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You are one of the very few in this thread who has it right. Relying on hard drives for photo storage is courting disaster -- perhaps not in the current owner's lifetime, but 50 or 100 years from now, all of those photos will be lost. And the future family members of the deceased will wonder why the familty photographer was so careless and shortsighted. 

No, printing is the way to go. As I have stated in this thread, I remain grateful to my long-gone grandmother for leaving behind a suitcase full of photos from the early 1930s onward, revealing in detail a world that doesn't exist anymore. Nearly all remain in great condition.