Hi everyone! I will be starting a project soon to digitise my family’s photo albums. There are boxes full of them (about 8 decades worth), so it’s probably going to take me years scanning bit by bit.
As this is for archival purposes, I need to take the highest resolution scans as is feasible which obviously increases file size. I don’t have a concept of how much space will be needed but I’m guessing 1 or 2tb will be more than enough.
Cloud
I did a number of test scans which I added to my personal Ente account, but I guess due to the large file size Ente was struggling to load the pictures and it kept crashing, so that seems excluded as an option. Also would cost me hundreds of euros per year in storage fees.
SSD
This seems the best choice as they have great read/write speeds but they are so very expensive. Also it seems they can lose data if not powered on regularly? Maybe not an issue as I will be regularly adding bunches of photographs. Also, do I buy an external SSD or make my own with enclosure?
HDD
Seems that “data hoarders” mostly recommend HDD’s for long-term storage, but I’m skeptical. I have not used a hard drive in years, but from memory they were really slow to search through large amounts of files. The main benefit seems to be cheaper price. And maybe modern HDD’s are better than the ones I remember from the olden days?
Longer term storage at those storage space can get complicated. I think the best way to go about this is to use a hybrid solution where you’re self hosting a private and secure photo manager that also has cloud capabilities so you can access and view them at any time from anywhere on any device.
Ente Photos is the answer. Of course, as a beginner this may be daunting and complicated not to mention even a little expensive but the cost is going to be one time and not ongoing so that’s something to account for.
As to how to do this best, there are others that can better advice you as I don’t have a good answer for that but this is the solution that would be best of which I am sure.
Cloud is good as an additional layer of safety, in case of physical destruction of local storage (fire, floods, storms…).
I store them on my local PC drives (SSD or HDD), backup to external drives (SSD or HDD), once a month maybe, and backup to cloud, encrypted hetzner storage share (nextcloud), 5€/month. I don’t need to access files directly on cloud, it’s enough I can get them back if needed.
Buy two HDDs for this. You’re doing this for archival purposes so you don’t care about speed (which will be much slower with HDD), but it’ll be much cheaper than SSD. Make a copy and put it on each HDD. Keep the two HDDs in different homes for redundancy. 2TB on cloud storage will cost you a lot more in the long run and you don’t need fast access if you’re just archiving stuff.
The slowness you remember is probably due to a few factors:
The HDD’s were older running at 5400 RPM (rotations per minute). Modern HDD’s are typically 7200 RPM and will feel significantly faster.
Also, HDD’s struggle with grabbing a bunch of tiny random files, like in an operating system. If it’s just videos or photos, it will work great because they’re just reading big files one at a time.
Data hoarders recommend them because they’re reliable for long-term storage when handled properly, and the price-per-TB can’t be beat.
Correct, but we’re talking about 1-2+ years of no power. Since you’ll be adding photos regularly, this won’t be an issue. The bigger issue is the cost for the amount of storage.
The real issue is having BACKUPS, not just storage. Imagine you scan everything, but you drop your hard drive, or your house floods. RIP all that work. That’s why you need copies in multiple places.
Primary working drive: External HDD (2TB+) - super affordable, fast enough, and is where you scan all your photos to
Local backup: Second copy on an external HDD stored separately in your home
Offsite/cloud backup: for this, you have options
Ente as cloud backup is a little overkill and a bit expensive. Better alternative would be services specifically for archiving data. Two good options are:
Backblaze B2 (~$6/TB/month) - specifically designed for backing up files you want to keep safe but don’t need to access constantly (it’s what I use for my photos and videos).
Amazon Glacier Deep Archive (~$1/TB/month) - very cheap because it’s meant for “cold storage”, as in files you’ll rarely access. It gets a bit more expensive once you need to access those files, but that’ll typically only be in emergencies, like when you lose your other two HDDs. For pure backup, it’s super affordable.
Or simply a 3rd HDD at a family members house that you update periodically. Update it every few months when you visit, so it’s more manual than the other cloud options, but it’s the easiest to understand.
Essentially, start with two external HDDs at home. Once you got a good chunk digitized, add that third backup wherever makes sense for your budget.
HDDs are slower, but are indeed more reliable for longer term storage.
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Something else not mentioned is magnetic tape storage. While it’s write-once, it’s often used for archival purposes and rarely read from. I wouldn’t recommend this as storage alone, but it would compliment other backup options.
For archiving, you should use optical storage. They are easier to store, a copies can be given to family members for cheap, and retain data far longer than SSD and HDD.
Thanks everybody for advice. I was going around in circles in my head not sure what I should do. It’s good to have everyone’s insight
It seems HDD is the general consensus so I shall do that, and organise having a back up in my parents’ house.
And with optical storage I might have to consider that when I have everything scanned. I did see recommended online those Verbatim optical disks which they say may last hundreds of years.
