RE: filmscanners: Best digital archive medium for scans? - follow up

["Mark Edmonds" <mmje@mmje.demon.co.uk>]

First off, my thanks for all the replies and the interesting view points. I
was hoping there might be some de-facto standard out there but obviously
not!

I'd just like to answer some suggestions:

1. Use Film

Yes, fine if your film was developed properly in the first place but I have
some negatives going back 30 years which have decayed to being next to
useless. Also, when I have spent many hours digitally restoring a scan of a
badly kept negative, I don't want to lose that work in a hurry!

2. Why is MO more stable than CDR?

I don't have any clear cut evidence here except -

a: I have heard many horror stories about CDRs becoming unusable over a
relatively short period of time (2 or 3 years for example) and having had a
fair share of duff burns, I'm not prepared to take the chance unless someone
can assure me that long term reliability of CDR is an urban myth. CDR of
course does have the huge benefit of being a universal medium and it will
take a lot to kill it off. We'll probably be still using them in 10 years
time just as we are still using the 3.5" floppy. I'd use CDR if I was 99%
confident the discs would last.

b: Companies like HP market their MO devices for archival purposes, quoting
I think, 50 years media life span. Problem is, they are hideously expensive.

3. Removable hard disk

I must admit, this idea looks like the most cost effective solution but hard
disks are still vulnerable. Modern drives might be quite tough in terms of
impact resistance and other matters but I'm afraid, I hark back to the
generation when hard disks were so delicate that if you so much as blew on
one, you took out half the sectors.


So, having weighed everything up, I think I'll wait until DVD-RW gains some
market penetration and see how that looks or failing that, go for removable
hard drives and replace them every 5 years or so to keep them compatible
with the current standards. It's not ideal but makes more sense than putting
your faith in the long term future of a medium which could well be obsolete
after a short period of time - or your hardware breaks and you can't get it
mended.

Thanks again for all the advice - I'm not going to be taking some grope in
the dark by buying a MO or DVD-RAM drive in the near future!

Mark