If you plan to have your photos, slides or negatives professionally scanned, you also need to think about the best way to store your images afterwards. Archiving digital photos means protecting your unique photos. Especially if you have opted for high-quality digitisation, you should not skimp on backing up your digital photos well.
Even though your digital photos are now no longer threatened by chemical decay, fading or colour casts, you still need to back them up. The photos do not suffer any loss of quality once they are scanned, but the storage media can be broken or lost. Unfortunately DVDs, USB sticks and hard disks don’t last forever either. They are also quite small, so they can sometimes “disappear” during a move or when tidying up.
Archiving your digital photos requires some basic knowledge about modern storage media. There is one rule that applys to all of them: do not save on the price. Cheap prices often result in poor quality, which is foremost at the expense of durability.
Best storage media for archiving your photos
Experts believe that high-quality DVDs can last 20 to 30 years under good storage conditions – avoid heat and sunlight at all costs. Some brands offer special DVDs for archiving digital photos. Kodak, for example, has a “golden DVD” in its range. The name is no coincidence: these special DVDs are coated with a mixture of gold and silver to protect them from light rays. Verbatim has launched a similar product: the “Archival Grade”, also coated with gold and silver.
External hard disks are said to have a lifespan of 2 to 10 years, if they are in constant use. At first glance, this might not seem very much. However, bear in mind that it is not uncommon nowadays to buy a new Computer at this interval. Scanned pictures and videos can be copied to a new hard drive with a simple click. In order to store hard disks safely, one should especially avoid shocks. The delicate mechanics inside these storage media are very sensitive and break easily
USB sticks are said to have a lifespan of at least 10 years. If they are only used to back up digital photos they last particularly long. The less the data on the stick is overwritten, the longer it will last. Flash drives are not sensitive to shocks and are more space-saving than hard disks.
The best advice: Save digital photos multiple times
Regardless of which storage medium you choose to store your digital photos on you should back up your pictures several times. This way you make sure that your memories last for the long term. The handy and affordable data carriers are ideal for this purpose. MEDIAFIX will provide you with the first data carrier of your choice. It contains the scanned photos, slides and negatives that you have ordered. You should copy this data carrier several times for better protection of your digital photos: save your digital photos on additional DVDs, USB sticks or a hard drive.
A very smart way to store digital photos is via the internet. Upload your scanned photos, for example using a cloud storage like Dropbox. The Cologne-based start-up Dawawas also offers this service. If you have security concerns about online solutions and want the digitised photos, slides and negatives to remain exclusively in the circle of your family, you should pass the digital data on to some relatives. This way, the photos are archived and optimally secured for the future.
Save memories with MEDIAFIX
What are you waiting for? Save your memories and have your analogue treasures digitised today – at MEDIAFIX with a best-price-guarantee.
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If you are unsure which data carrier would suit you best, you are welcome to discuss this with our customer service. We will make you an individual suggestion based on the size of your photo collection.
Do you have any questions? Our friendly customer service will be happy to advise you in a personal conversation.
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