datawouldneedtobetransferredtoanotherstoragesystem
at a later date to ensure image longevity.
Theyhaveseveral drawbacks. Theyareslowto transfer
andretrievedatawhen comparedwith harddrives. With
very little damage they can easily become unusable or
unreliable;asmallscratchtothesurfaceoftherecordable
side canrender thedata unreadable.In addition to this,
dependingonhowthediscisstoredorarchivedandindeed
handled, the chemicals on the disc can react and
degenerate, resulting in corrupted image files.
If using CDs/DVDs as your storage device
however, ensurethat youaredoing sowith theWORM
system (writeonce readmany)and not a device that is
rewritable,asthesecouldbe mistakenlyoverwrittenwith
other data.
Online Storage
Suchspaces astheCloud, Backblaze,Flickr,Picasaand
Dropbox,amongstmanyothers,offerthephotographerthe
option to store data virtually.As we are predominantly
dealing withRAWfilestheseoptions wouldneedafast
internetanddownload/uploadspeedtomakethisaviable
sourceofbackinguplargequantitiesoffiles.Howeverthey
couldbe a goodoptionif smaller JPEG versionsof the
original are needed.
Hard Drive Sharing
Thisisasystemwherebyaback-upcanbemadeviathe
internet onto another hard drive located away from the
main storage device, say at home or at a friend’s or