Digital Photography

One of the most common questions I hear at my workshops is “what’s the best way to store all my digital photos?” The answer is easy: Gold, gold, gold. As in, gold-coated, archival CDs or DVDs that are engineered to provide the longest possible life span of your digital memories. You will pay more for the discs than for everyday discs, but the difference made by the gold coating is important to the archival quality.

Why not rely on your hard drive, whether internal or external, or those cute little flash-memory keys? Because, in a nutshell, they fail. They’re mechanical beings, after all, and if you drop them or your system is on during an electrical surge or lighting strike, they’re very easily fried. In fact, drives frequently lay down and die for what appears to be no good reason at all. And don’t even ask me how many times someone has told me that they had all their photos stored on a laptop that was stolen . . .

Nope, what you need is a CD or DVD burner and good quality, archival gold discs. For an extra level of security, burn two copies of each disc and store one at the home of a friend or family member in case yours is hit by fire or flood.