Digital scanning has long been championed as the most effective way to preserve media of all varieties. From news clippings to photos to video, everything we love can be scanned and preserved for posterity. But digital conversion is not, by itself, as exhaustive a solution to worries about aging photos and the like as we wish. The fallibility of storage media itself is at the heart of the problem. Because any one storage device or disc can deteriorate or fail unexpectedly, scanning should be treated as just one step in a strategy to protect and store things digitally, as opposed to being seen as the one-and-only step necessary. So a better understanding is necessary to ensure that the things you save will last.
The first thing to understand is that all storage has a finite lifespan. This means that without backing up files, all stored media is similarly infinitely less immortal than many of us had assumed. Between things that are created without any paper original, especially digital photographs and writings, and digital conversion of photos and other items that are old enough they might fall apart at any second, there are countless files stored on hard drives, DVDs, and CDs that would be irreplaceable if that one storage media were to fail. So just how likely are these storage stalwarts to fail?
Companies that manufacture CD and CD-ROM based products readily admit that if a disc reaches 10 years old and still functions normally, it’s surprising. The five-year mark is when people should begin to worry about the integrity of data stored on CDs. DVDs and Blue Ray Discs, which are attractive for things like backing up photos because of their enormous capacity may fare slightly better, but 15 years is overly optimistic. The lifespan of hard drives is the most difficult information to find. Manufacturers suggest their drives should last over 100 years if they experience minimal use, only connected to a power source when data is being backed up to them at a frequency of once a month or less. But they also have a failure rate between two and five percent. Failure rates for both storage discs are similar.
While physical degradation of storage discs can set on quickly with few warning signs, hard drives sometimes offer warning signs before failure. The most common are abnormal noises like screeching or clicking, but these are usually associated with the primary hard drive in a computer. And this doesn’t speak to hard drives that fail while sitting on a shelf, rarely used. Things like magnetic fields, moisture, heat, and being dropped or otherwise moved too much can all undermine a hard drive’s stability, and many of these also damage disc storage.
Beyond exercising caution and trying to keep any storage medium in the right conditions – dry, not too cold nor too warm, free from magnets, intense sunlight, and radiation, and properly protected so they aren’t shaken – the threat of losing everything on a drive should lead those of us for whom digital scanning has become our preferred method of photo storage to consider further backups. This is the kind of problem that plagues NASA and environmentalists seeking to compare current data against numbers and photographs from the 1970s, and their best solution should work fine for the average person’s needs. Essentially, they just make sure to have two backups, preferably in two different forms.
The problem with this strategy is that as a culture we already have too much data. We take three of the same picture with a digital camera and then keep all three shots. Storage space is cheap enough that there’s no reason to cull the inferior versions. But instituting consumer data redundancy to protect against failing discs and hard drives will be expensive. So it’s important to spend the time to only back up essential files.
The illusion that digital scanning can protect an old photo for eternity has been shattered. This kind of preservation and longevity also requires constant attention and management of file storage so physical media degradation won’t catch us unawares. But with a little extra attention, it can still be very worthwhile to convert all your old photos to a digital format.
It is our job to preserve these materials for future generations, that means we have no room for error. We go to tremendous lengths to ensure that you’re 100% satisfied with your order. If you're not satisfied, we will reprocess your order for free.
