The earliest recorded evidence of migration of data from one media format to another goes back to ancient Greece, when shortages of papyrus forced the Greeks to seek an alternative medium, in this case parchment, which in addition to being both readily available and inexpensive, was far more durable than papyrus.
The most common file formats used today for photographic applications include JPEG, TIFF, DNG and an assortment of proprietary RAW formats. There are others including PNG, GIF, BMP, PSD, PSP and a few more, but for archiving purposes it’s more sensible to stick with JPEG, TIFF, DNG and RAW.
Your choice of storage media is an equally important part of the archiving-process equation, and here too there are choices to be made. Among the options currently available are CDs/DVDs, portable hard drives, larger-capacity flash drives, RAID systems, and your computer’s hard drive, which should be viewed as a short-term solution.
The first three chapters of this series had to do with storing and archiving digital image files, which aside from a collection of electronic “ones,” “zeros” and whatever form of storage device they’re housed in, are intangible. You can’t pick them up in your hands, feel their surface textures, or hang them on the wall.
Optical discs have been common for more than 30 years now, and scratched discs have been common for just as long. Just about everyone has experienced a CD that skips or a DVD that freezes. Optical discs are read by lasers, and a little scratch or splotch of grease is all it takes to interrupt the reading process. Sometimes you can simply clean or polish a disc and it will work like new.
Just because you always copy all the pictures from your digital camera to your computer hard drive doesn’t mean they’re safe. Hard drives fail all the time, and along with them goes the collection of years of picture taking. It’s bad enough when you lose cherished family photos, and maybe worse when you take pictures for a living and lose profits along with the images.
If you’ve ever had a folder full of files, and you wanted to convert the names of the files to editable text, you’ve probably realized that it’s not such a simple thing to do. You might want to do this if you have a large collection of still images, songs or video clips and want to compile a list of them in a Word document or Excel chart.
DVD burners have been the standard optical drives found in most new computers for years now. Blu-ray burners have been around for a while too, but only recently have they begun to displace DVD burners. Blu-ray drives are now quite affordable and they’re backward compatible with DVDs and CDs.
I have a backup methodology in which I maintain two external hard drives. I back up all of my files—documents, pictures, music, movies, etc.—on each drive so that if one of the drives goes belly up, I still have all of my files intact on the other drive. This is almost like maintaining a RAID 1 array, except with a lot more hassle.
A hard drive is a sealed unit containing spinning magnetic platters, or disks, with heads that can position themselves anywhere on the platters to read and write data to them. Think of it as a record player that can both play and record music.
Ordinary people can use ordinary flash drives. But those involved in infantry, demolition, deep sea diving, espionage, smash-up derby, ultimate fighting and other rough-and-tumble activities will want a more rugged flash drive. It can’t hurt if the drive holds 64GB, either. Of course, anyone who likes cool gadgets will find the LaCie XtremKey appealing.
There are many ways to back up a computer, and lots of devices for this purpose. Most such devices are a nuisance for mobile users because they add to the bulk and weight of everything that has to be kept in tow. But Lexar’s new backup solution for netbook and notebook computers is no bigger than your thumb nail.
Mac users pride themselves on style. After all, Mac notebooks and desktops are the most stylish-looking computers in the universe. Western Digital’s new My Book Studio LX is designed to complement the appearance of Mac computers and it offers many innovative features. Of course, it’s also compatible with PCs.
One of the most daunting technical challenges facing small businesses as they start up is choosing a data-storage system. The concepts underlying storage arrays go over most people's heads. Even when understood, the rigid structure demanded by RAID arrays means figuring out exactly how much storage you'll need for the foreseeable future.
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Optical discs have been common for more than 30 years now, and scratched discs have been common for just as long. Just about everyone has experienced a CD that skips or a DVD that freezes. Optical discs are read by lasers, and a little scratch or splotch of grease is all it takes to interrupt the reading process. Sometimes you can simply clean or polish a disc and it will work like new.
Just because you always copy all the pictures from your digital camera to your computer hard drive doesn’t mean they’re safe. Hard drives fail all the time, and along with them goes the collection of years of picture taking. It’s bad enough when you lose cherished family photos, and maybe worse when you take pictures for a living and lose profits along with the images.
If you’ve ever had a folder full of files, and you wanted to convert the names of the files to editable text, you’ve probably realized that it’s not such a simple thing to do. You might want to do this if you have a large collection of still images, songs or video clips and want to compile a list of them in a Word document or Excel chart.
DVD burners have been the standard optical drives found in most new computers for years now. Blu-ray burners have been around for a while too, but only recently have they begun to displace DVD burners. Blu-ray drives are now quite affordable and they’re backward compatible with DVDs and CDs.
I have a backup methodology in which I maintain two external hard drives. I back up all of my files—documents, pictures, music, movies, etc.—on each drive so that if one of the drives goes belly up, I still have all of my files intact on the other drive. This is almost like maintaining a RAID 1 array, except with a lot more hassle.
A hard drive is a sealed unit containing spinning magnetic platters, or disks, with heads that can position themselves anywhere on the platters to read and write data to them. Think of it as a record player that can both play and record music.
Ordinary people can use ordinary flash drives. But those involved in infantry, demolition, deep sea diving, espionage, smash-up derby, ultimate fighting and other rough-and-tumble activities will want a more rugged flash drive. It can’t hurt if the drive holds 64GB, either. Of course, anyone who likes cool gadgets will find the LaCie XtremKey appealing.
There are many ways to back up a computer, and lots of devices for this purpose. Most such devices are a nuisance for mobile users because they add to the bulk and weight of everything that has to be kept in tow. But Lexar’s new backup solution for netbook and notebook computers is no bigger than your thumb nail.
Mac users pride themselves on style. After all, Mac notebooks and desktops are the most stylish-looking computers in the universe. Western Digital’s new My Book Studio LX is designed to complement the appearance of Mac computers and it offers many innovative features. Of course, it’s also compatible with PCs. 
One of the most daunting technical challenges facing small businesses as they start up is choosing a data-storage system. The concepts underlying storage arrays go over most people's heads. Even when understood, the rigid structure demanded by RAID arrays means figuring out exactly how much storage you'll need for the foreseeable future.
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