environmentpossiblewiththeminimumriskofmovement
or damage.
Evenwiththeseconsiderationsobserved,itisthoughtthat
theaveragelifespanofanyexternalharddriveisanywhere
between five and ten years. With the advances in
technology, itwould be prudentforthe photographerto
transferanydatahewishestopreserveeverythreetofive
years ontoa moreadvancedand morestabletechnology
available.
The RAID System (Redundant Array of
Independent Disks)
TheRAIDsystemwasdevelopedtocounterallproblems
thatmayarisefrom storingdatadigitally. Itemploysan
array(variety)ofharddrives,allusedinconjunctionwith
eachothertopreserveandensuretheimagedataisstored
securely.Ifoneharddriveisfailingthereareotherswithin
the system that will detect and backup information.
TherearevaryinglevelsoftheRAIDsystemrelatingtothe
fragilityandimportanceofthedatabeingstored.themore
basiccopy/mirroringofdataistakencareoflowerdown
the scale, and the higher up the RAID scale the more
complex and sophisticated the data, detection and
protection becomes.
The Best File Type for Archiving?
Thetypeoffilethatthephotographerultimatelyarchives
should also be a consideration, as the
longevityofcertainfiletypesmaybequestionableinyears
tocome.Throughoutthisguidethephotographerhasbeen