[Lex Computer & Tech Group/LCTG] follow-up question re hard drives and long term storage

Thu Nov 25 13:58:03 PST 2021

I've got family videos on DVD-RAM discs. Any thoughts on how I can convert
these files to a durable format and save them to an external hard drive?

Thanks,
Umesh

On Wed, Nov 24, 2021 at 6:32 PM Harry Forsdick <forsdick at gmail.com> wrote:

> Denise,
>
> You describe that the data she wants to store are
> images/pictures/photographs.  Carbonite is a general-purpose backup
> system.  There are better ways to store photographs that have the online
> qualities of Carbonite, but have a lot more useful features if you are
> storing photographs.  Here are three of those systems:
>
>    - Google Photos (https://www.google.com/photos/about/)
>    - Amazon Photos (
>    https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Photos/b?ie=UTF8&node=13234696011)
>    - Apple Photos (https://www.apple.com/ios/photos/)
>
> There are many other systems out there and it is not my intention to say
> that other offerings aren't as good.  But, these three are offered by large
> companies that are likely to be around for a long time, and have the
> resources to keep up to date with the latest technology and features -- and
> that is important.
>
> Each of these systems will provide you with the following capabilities:
>
>    - Online photo storage
>    - Reliable backup of that storage so, depending on your trust level,
>    you can count on the service to take care of backing up your
>    valuable photos.
>    - Organizing mechanisms such as folders and albums.
>    - Presentation capabilities, such as slide shows, the ability to
>    produce printed books of your photos, etc.
>    - Higher-level capabilities such as face recognition and object
>    recognition so that you can search or organize photos by automatic
>    recognition from the photo itself, rather than someone manual labeling
>    effort.
>
> I personally use both Google Photos and Apple Photos.  They both are very
> good and worth the modest amount of money they charge for their services.
>
> Of course, the quality of any collection of photographs depends on how
> much time you spend curating the photos.  Some of the futuristic Machine
> Learning (ML) capabilities of these systems include automatic curation
> where the ML system chooses the best photographs of your collection based
> on analyzing how someone has selected a few photos from a lot of photos
> taking into consideration things like composition, focus, colors in the
> scene.  It's pretty amazing what is being done or starting to be done these
> days.
>
> Hope this answers some of your daughter's questions.
>
> My first and last recommendation is that she do something -- she will find
> out that exploring the capabilities of what can be done is very interesting
> and at the same time will be a safer way of storing her photos than on her
> own disks.
>
> Regards,
>
> -- Harry
>
>
>
> Harry Forsdick <http://www.forsdick.com/resume/>
> Lexington Photo Scanning <http://lexingtonphotoscan.com/>
> Town Meeting Member Precinct 7 <http://lexingtontmma.org/>
> harry at forsdick.com
> www.forsdick.com
>   46 Burlington St.
> Lexington, MA 02420 <https://goo.gl/xZXT2F>
> (781) 799-6002 (mobile) <callto:17817996002>
> meet.jit.si/HarryForsdick (video)
> Click <http://forsdick.weebly.com/home/my-websites> to see my other
> websites
>
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 24, 2021 at 5:46 PM Denise <denise at rcn.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi All,
>>
>>
>>
>> This is a follow up question re hard drives and long term storage.
>>
>>
>>
>> So my daughter has about 5-7 external hard drives and none are
>> newer…..She wants a long term safer solution (like Carbonite) rather than
>> keeping everything on these hard drives; as she now knows they will all
>> fail eventually.
>>
>>
>>
>> The pics (only pics on all these drives) that are on these drives are on
>> no computer at all, just on these hard drives.
>>
>>
>>
>> Given that Carbonite backs up your computer (and word, excel, etc.) and
>> these pics are not on a computer or iphone, what’s a good option for her?
>> She does not need backup for word, excel or other computer stuff.
>>
>>
>>
>> How should she get all these to transfer to a better and more long term
>> solution?
>>
>>
>>
>> With Carbonite you would have to have one computer and only ONE hard
>> drive connected; so that might not be the best option.
>>
>>
>>
>> thanks,
>>
>> Denise
>>
>> p.s. we’re still working on taking in the failed drive.
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