Long Term Digital Image Storage

[soneill]

Hi,

While browsing through some old external hard drives today I was taken back by how unsharp and desaturated some of my old images have become. Taken with the D100 and D200, they, at the time at least, had PING. Now, they look as if they are eroding. Can anyone tell me what it the longevity of the typical digital file? And, can anything be done to increase it's lifespan?

Shane

[DarkPenguin]

What?!?

[soneill]

maybe so John ..   maybe so!

With sincerity, is this a joke? A digital file in and of itself will never erode. The media it's kept on may degrade or be unreadable but that has nothing to do with a file losing saturation or sharpness.

Maybe you have a better eye now and older digital shots just weren't processed well.

[dalethorn]

Hi,

While browsing through some old external hard drives today I was taken back by how unsharp and desaturated some of my old images have become. Taken with the D100 and D200, they, at the time at least, had PING. Now, they look as if they are eroding. Can anyone tell me what it the longevity of the typical digital file? And, can anything be done to increase it's lifespan?

Shane

It's a common problem that a lot of people see. It's not deterioration of the files, since in most cases that would make the files unreadable, or produce very obvious distortions of the images that would make them unusable.  Something has changed in your system since those old images were processed and filed away.  A new and better monitor that's more accurate, better software and/or image processing techniques, and so on.  It would be good if you could certify that your current viewing system is indeed accurate, so you have a baseline for judging the new -vs- the old.  It would also be good if you could find the most likely cause(s) of the problems with those old files, so you can compare with what you're doing now, to make sure you're not repeating any of those mistakes.

[djgarcia]

Naahh. The zeroes have decayed and they're being perceived by the system as -0.002 instead of zero, and the ones now have a value of .928, all due to the economic depression  , hence the desaturated look   ...

[stever]

i thought it was well known that bits from different cameras age differently like wine - point and shoot images are best looked at within a year, the average dslr may not reach a peak for a year or so (with some substantial variability), and the high end cameras may take a decade to reach their peak like fine cabernets (or may be complete crap for unknown reasons like expensive burgundies).

forgive me

[Slough]

Hi,

While browsing through some old external hard drives today I was taken back by how unsharp and desaturated some of my old images have become. Taken with the D100 and D200, they, at the time at least, had PING. Now, they look as if they are eroding. Can anyone tell me what it the longevity of the typical digital file? And, can anything be done to increase it's lifespan?

Shane

Sounds like the bits have gone mouldy. Is there a blue cast to the image?

Seriously, I suspect your monitor has changed. Unless you calibrate your monitor, chances are that what you see today is not what you saw a few years ago, whether you have swapped monitor, or are using the same one. My work monitor is foul and I need to calibrate it.

[Slough]

i thought it was well known that bits from different cameras age differently like wine - point and shoot images are best looked at within a year, the average dslr may not reach a peak for a year or so (with some substantial variability), and the high end cameras may take a decade to reach their peak like fine cabernets (or may be complete crap for unknown reasons like expensive burgundies).

forgive me

Do you think I should store my hard drives in an Oak cabinet? And do I need to regularly turn them?

[DarkPenguin]

Do you think I should store my hard drives in an Oak cabinet? And do I need to regularly turn them?

Oh, absolutely.  And "spin them" is the term those in "the industry" use.

[Justan]

Oh, absolutely.  And "spin them" is the term those in "the industry" use.

And definitely don’t confuse “spinning” them with “bouncing” them. That’s a term specific to a different industry and has a special meaning with hardware. Well that and drives, like most hardware dont bounce very well.

Don’t ask how I came to know that.      

[MarkL]

Stop feeding the troll people  

[NikoJorj]

Do you think I should store my hard drives in an Oak cabinet? And do I need to regularly turn them?

Turning them 1/4 of a turn every now and then doesn't harm for sure (well, it changes their orientation relative to the Earth magnetic field!), but don't exceed a few years (if not months) in oak, or the images will all take the same vanilla-and-smoke flavor covering their individual beauty...

[brianrpatterson]

Aw, shoot - let's do it right. Freeze dry those suckers and nothing can touch them!

Maybe your eyes have degraded and lost a little of their RGB response. You may very well be going monochromatic.

[teddillard]

Stop feeding the troll people  

aw c'mon this is the funniest thing i've read for weeks.  

[Slough]

Oh, absolutely.  And "spin them" is the term those in "the industry" use.

Oh dear I knew there would be an expert in the house. I am humbly admonished and will duly "spin them". Should I select the "synthetics" or the "cottons" option?

[djgarcia]

You people are uncharacteristically cruel. Trolls have feelings too, you know. And they need periodical feeding.

[AndyF]

Hi,

While browsing through some old external hard drives today I was taken back by how unsharp and desaturated some of my old images have become. Taken with the D100 and D200, they, at the time at least, had PING. Now, they look as if they are eroding. Can anyone tell me what it the longevity of the typical digital file? And, can anything be done to increase it's lifespan?

Shane

That's actually rather odd.  The 1's from many years ago were much heftier, built much better than the lightweight ones we use today that are made from recycled files.  

Perhaps only part of those olde 1s would fit into the smaller geometry video controller you have, so it's only displaying 0.25s and zeroes.

Andy

[free1000]

To counter the phenomenon known as 'bit-rot' it is only necessary to apply a simple algorithm known as 'rot13' followed by its inverse to the image files on a regular basis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROT13

The copy effectively moves each bit to a memory location. New data can then be written into the old locations in order to refresh those memory locations.

'Ghosts' of old data may continue to reside in the memory locations, and with the right tools, old data can be partially retrieved theoretically forever using a ST electron microscope, though this is out of reach of the technical abilities of most users.

Thanks to this refreshing process, my old 3 megapixel fuji compact camera files look as vivid today as they did in 2001.