Anyone Else Using their Flash Cards as Primary long Term Storage Medium?

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

Really cards have gotten so cheap for their capacity have others started to just leave the RAW files on their cards and of course move copies to their comps to process and then just keep the card as long term storage?

Really CF cards are small, pretty non-destructable, and now that 16Gig cards can be had for under $75 (ie 1000+ RAW files on most cameras) so cost of storage per shot is like 7.5 cents a shot for long term storage which is getting pretty cheap(some cards drop this cost down to under a nickle) and they just are so easy to work with.

[CaptainTom]

No!

I can buy a 1.5 TB hard drive for $125.

let's see, if I have 12mb files and divide that into ...........

you must be kidding ?? it's around $.001 per image. (that's 1/1000 of a cent)

[kenw]

I know many folks who use their SD cards in just this manner. Full? Buy another.

A shoebox can hold billions of images....

[jeffkohn]

Originally Posted by kenw

I know many folks who use their SD cards in just this manner. Full? Buy another.

A shoebox can hold billions of images....

Good luck finding a single image in that shoebox.

Seriously though I don't know if there's been any studies done on the longevity of these cards. I'm sure they'd be fine for a few years. But 10, 20, or longer? Who knows.

[Sonny]

Hell no. I agree with Cpt Tom!

[S-Man]

I used flash cards to help me with math, but it was by no means a long-term storage aid. I've forgotten most of it.

[toverman]

Originally Posted by S-Man

I used flash cards to help me with math, but it was by no means a long-term storage aid. I've forgotten most of it.

I don't use my CF cards for longterm storage. SD cards at least have a little button to write-protect them, but I'd have little faith in those, too. The cataloging alone would be a pain; they're not big enough to write meaningful things on them.

A good hard-drive system with automatic redundancy and archival gold DVDs just in case smells like a safer way to go.

[lokerd]

I would never dream of going back to storing stuff on so many devices. WAY too difficult on the management. Reminds me of the days of the 100mb Zip disk. I was constantly inserting one drive after another to find stuff. And initially, there were utilities to help organize offline media...so one could browse through shortcuts, then when you double clicked, it would ask you to insert that media. YUK!!

It also reminds me of partitioning large drives, like my first 1gb drive to 250mb partitions. Yuk!

Besides, I just LOVE Picasa...and how it indexes every photo I have ever taken.

Buffalo is selling a 6tb Terastation Pro...which is much better than the Linkstation according to Buffalo's own tech team (a guy at buffalo actually said NOT to get the Linkstation like from Frys). The 6tb Pro is a little pricey right now, but I am going to get something soon. I have a 2TB Terastation Pro at work, and 1tb NAS at home, in-addition to internal 1tb and assortment of other large drives. Point is, every image I have exists in at least three places. In fact, I just put a 2nd drive in my laptop, a 500gb, that is just for pictures as the primary 160gb was full. So, I can have pretty much have every personal picture I have taken for the last few years on my laptop. Then it also exists on a desktop drive and then backup to the home NAS, and then taken to work and stared on that NAS, which is also backup to an external 750gb drive. I also have an external 500gb mini USB drive and 16gb jump drive to carry my my critical files (that exist in triplicate also).

I am not fooling around with backup. Keeping my image directories current is pretty easy. My only problem is when I modify existing files to make sure I copy the modified to the correct location. I also have a webshare at school that needs to be synchronized with a manual FTP server to act as a mirror for my school website should the school site crash, like early today.

It's crasy, no doubt trying to keep up with this. The SUPER sized drives are at least helping keep it all in one place instead of multiple drives.

[Some Idiot]

I use this http://www.infotechnow.com/product_i...5689&s=froogle

and 1 TB drive's as back up...So cheap right now, 1 TB is like 89.00 or less

[janikphoto]

This is a bad idea. There is archival info online somewhere (by a reputable source) that states CF cards can hold data for 5 to 10 years. They hold the info through a charge that slowly dissipates. And DVD's aren't as archival as CD's, but blueray is supposed to be. If you REALLY want to save your stuff, but the expensive as heck gold archival CD's from a pro photo source. Then, make two and keep one off-site. Oh, and burn them at the slowest setting. Faster burns equal more errors.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

I was talking after dumping copies off onto your computer /drive and using the CF cards vs DVD's as storage medium.

As to the person who said that it would be a info nightmare- just number each card/case and then have a file card/sheet printed out with the info on it of subject/when shot/ which shots that you liked best etc or even have that as a file on a computer so you know that 09-09-25a is the Sept 2009 card shot on the 25th and it was the first card shot that day 09-09-25/26b would be second card which includes shots from the 26th etc. starting with year first then month then day.

I had heard that the cards would hold stable data for over 10 years but I sent a question to Sandisk and gave them a link to this thread- will see if they respond in the next few days.

Really a clean file set up could be as small as a few inches by a few inches by a few inches and easily transportable-easily secured from flood and storm- and easy to work with.

[CaptainTom]

The only up side would be that from personal experience I know that a Sandisk 4gb Extreme III will survive the washing machine and dryer.

[janikphoto]

Yes, the flash card can be a very durable short term solution, but as of right now, gold archival CDR's are still the best long term solution. If you REALLY want to store CF cards, store them in the anti-static electronic bags and seal them with a moisture wicking device - like a silica desiccant pack.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

This is what Sandisk replied:
Dear Paul,

Thank you for emailing SanDisk Technical Support. It is our goal to make sure you have all the resources you need to get the most from your product.

We truly appreciate your inquiry about our product line. Please be aware that the CompactFlash card has an MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) of more than 1,000,000 hours. Note that the said MTBF is the average length of time a user may reasonably expect a card to work before an incapacitating fault occurs.

Please refer to your My SanDisk at http://kb.sandisk.com anytime to see all of your incident history and product registration information. You can log in using your email address as your login and the password that you created.

Also, you can visit http://kb.sandisk.com, our online keyword searchable Knowledgebase, to easily find answers to your Technical Support and Customer Service questions for all of SanDisk's products. Simply enter your search terms and our Knowledgebase will search an extensive database of commonly asked questions as well as our online forums at http://www.sandisk.com/forums to provide you with the most complete answers possible.

Should you have any other concern with our products, please reply to this email.

Best regards,
Johnson Paredes
SanDisk Technical Support

Which doesn't really answer my question if the data starts to degrade after X time when stored on the card but does indicate that it probably is a lot longer than 10 years.

[tc95]

Paul....I use my CF cards to transport information or images....just because the read/write speeds are faster...unless I use my Firewire HD....but as a long term storage...no...like everyone said...way to hard to find anything...Capt Tom is right...I would get a cheap network raid solution...linksys has a two drive system...just in case one fails you have a back-up....

Or get one of those online backup services....just make sure they are reputable....it is off site and you can have access to it from any computer....so you don't have to carry anyting or store anything...!!!