storing photos for generations?

I'm storing pictures from my camera on flash drives, year by year.  I edit and delete a lot of them and label each folder as it comes off the camera with date and a bit of information on the subjects.

My question is to do with how to preserve some, not all, for the future?
I have family photos developed on paper and card that are well over a hundred years old, keeping just fine in a box.

I've learned that even a quality flash drive/memory stick might last ten years? and hard drive storage even less?

I'm thinking about getting some of the more special ones printed up and then I wonder how good the paper and inks are that are used now and if there's going to be a shelf life for them also?

I've moved all of the ones that were on cd's to flash drives and I suppose I could just keep moving them over the years to the next 'perfect' technology but doesn't that seem like they would loose quality eventually?

any thoughts or suggestions?

Judith, this is such a good question. It's something I ponder as well. And it's not only the physical lifespan of the storage device, it's that sometimes they become obsolete. Think of floppy discs! Or will future devices still be able to read them?

It seems to me that the very best way is to make physical print copies, either for a photo album, or have them published as a photo book. I know there's still a risk of loss from something like fire or flood, but to me, it seems like a good option.

Judith,

THAT is the real question isn’t it!  What format to use.  I have a couple of thoughts but they all have shortcomings.

1). Optical drives should have a better life span than flash drives.  The obvious problem though is whether or not you can find an optical drive in the future.

2). Quality external hard drives should be pretty resilient.  Look for reviews and check for reliability.  In external hard drives the point of failure is frequently not the actual hard drive itself.

3). Online storage.  But who knows the password in the future and who knows if the company will even be afloat.

Ok, here are some more expensive options

4). Back up to multiple hard drives.  This is to ensure redundancy in case of failure.

5). Consider SSD storage.  SSD’s are coming down in price.  If you disconnect the SSD when not in use it should last much longer.

6). Set up a server in a RAID configuration.  This is the most expensive option but the best if you want really reliable local data storage.  A RAID configuration, done properly (there are several different configurations) will store a single file across multiple hard drives.  If any one hard drive fails, the rest can fill in the blanks while you install a new hard drive.  This is a very reliable, secure form of data storage.  But even so, I would still back up to another hard drive or offline in case of a fire, virus, etc.

In the end, the worst part of storage for a century is probably going to be changing formats and connectors.  Many/most new computers just don’t have optical drives anymore and barely any have an old floppy drive.  I have no idea how long the USB connection will be standard.  I think you could reasonably make your data secure, but retrieving it after 100 years might prove difficult.

These are just a few thoughts and I hope they help.

Eric

I want to make a slight correction to the above post.  SSD’s have improved on their read-write cycles, but for long-term storage it looks like 5-10 years is about where errors start to creep in.  So I suppose it is better to go with older mechanical hard drives for now.

Eric

thanks Leigh and Eric!

The more I think about it the more I would like to print some of the images.  People mostly.

Photos of our hikes and gardens and all I'm willing to risk losing, the grandkids not so much.

Does anyone recommend a place to have them printed other than a kiosk at a big box store?
Does Walgreens still print photos in store?

I see several online 'archival' photo printers....who to trust?

It's something I've been meaning to do too. I know both Walmart and Walgreens offer photo book services. The other one is Shutterfly. Looks like they're running a special at the moment. I've used them in the past and would probably use them again.

Judith,

Just a word of warning, not all prints are created equal.  Some printed photos degrade rather quickly, though this is usually limited to pictures printed from one’s own printer and the photo paper makes a big difference.

I suspect that the prints you can get from a more professional service will do a better job and generally last longer.

Lastly, I am sure that you know already that having the print protected by a quality glass or keep behind a transparent barrier in a scrap book will also protect against UV and oxidation.

But I am sure that you already know these bits.

Eric

I have floppy disks in the basement filled with family photos from an outing many years ago.  Even if I could get a computer with a disk drive, I don't think I would be able to find the software to read them.

r ranson wrote:I have floppy disks in the basement filled with family photos from an outing many years ago.  Even if I could get a computer with a disk drive, I don't think I would be able to find the software to read them.

I've probably told this story here before? I love to shop at thrift stores and once found a slide projector and boxes of slides...we enjoyed someone else's trip to Russia and other places...even got it out as kind of a joke when a friend was over.  
It is amazing how technology has gotten less long lasting isn't it?  Those slides were decades old.

I have glass plates from the early 1900's that are just fine and we had photos developed from them in the seventies back when camera shops that could do all sorts of things still had store fronts.  Even most of the pictures my grandma developed herself are fine...a very few have faded even in the album and I wonder if that was something (lacking?) in her developing process?  

The more I think about it the less I am comfortable with my photo storage on any digital format.  No recent technology seems to have a good track record.

Paper has been around for quite awhile.  I have some on my desk right now.
Acid free paper lasts longer.
Sometimes old-school is a better option.

If you do print, and I think it is a good idea, keep the prints in a dark location.  To the degree possible, limit their exposure to air.   Like Eric, I store on optical disks and I keep those disks with an old laptop.  I imagine whoever finds them will toss the laptop and wonder what the disks are for.

I’m a little late to this conversation, but here’s my two cents.

I strongly recommend making photo books. There are a ton of options out there, including Shutterfly, mixbook, and if you have a local photography shop, they might be able to help you. I believe Costco in the US also makes them. The online tools are easy to use, and there are a variety sizes and formats. For most of these companies, the books are printed onto archival paper, so you can just pop for finished books on your bookshelf, and there they can live for potentially hundreds of years.

We have a bunch of mixbook that only cost a few dollars (with coupons). My wife quite enjoys taking an hour after a fun weekend with lots of pictures and throwing together a little book that usually arrives in about 2 weeks.  

-Daniel

Our daughter and her spouse have taken several dream trips of a lifetime.  They have taken lots of photos and when they get home they pick the best photos and have several photo books, like Daniel is recommending.

These books make excellent "coffee table books".

Alongside each photo is the description of what they were doing or where they were.

These books are just like a real book that a person might buy from Amazon, just one of a kind.

I thought this was such a great idea.

How about the practicalities of storing paper photos once you’ve printed them?  

I heat with a rocket mass heater, and I am unwilling to use anything electric or wasteful to heat my home. In summer I keep cool by ducking in the cellar a bit or sitting on the mass of the heater, which stays pretty cool. But photos need consistent air temperature and humidity:  

“Constant high temperatures and humidity in the summer and low temperatures and humidity in the winter can cause your photographs to become brittle and crack. In severe cases, it may cause separation of the emulsion (image) from the support (paper base) of the photo. Dampness can cause photographs to stick together.” (ThoughtCo.com)

I suppose I can store a box of photos on the mass year-round, but space is at a premium.

My father was a photographer and, to put it in permaculturist terms, has about 3 cubic yards of photographs in frames or out that I need to dispose of. I am giving away as many as I can but I do think fossil fuel home heating will not be around much longer.  Maybe I can get some into some more museums and hopefully those can be climate controlled …thoughts?  Thanks

Some possible ideas:

--Amish fridge (powered by a solar collector in daytime, and a rocket stove at night if it's really needed) for cooling.  See threads in the Energy forum about off-grid refrigerators, or one of my old posts that was on one of those threads should get you there.  Essentially the "Amish fridge" is powered by a propane flame evaporating a circulating agent that cools the system, and, I'm assuming, would dehumidify also.

--air well.  Maybe this can capture enough ambient water from the air.  (If I'm storing photos in a barn, not so much.  Also, there's the question of where the water gets put once it condenses.  And I don't know if an air well can actually make a dent in ambient humidity or just captures a small amount of the water.  At least it would seem to divide up the "labor" of condensation amont a larger number of "laborers" (surfaces) and also bring more effective (cooler) "laborers" to the project than the photos, so it should do _something_, but I don't know if it's anywhere near enough.

Wow, score one for Reddit:

"Calcium chloride, which you can buy as a ice melt product in many places, was used in bulk as desiccant/dehumidifier before A/C and electrical dehumidifiers were common. Application of it for this purpose was often as simple as having a 55 gallon drum filled with the salt placed in the area that needed dehumidifed (warehouses, silage silos, cold rooms, etc.).

Completely dry calcium chloride will absorb about 3 times its weight in moisture at 90% relative humidity - in which it can literally become a wet slurry, being so effective in absorbing water from the air. In comparison, common silica gel only absorbs about a 1/3 of its weight in moisture before being too saturated. Heating the salt at 212'F+ will drive off the trapped moisture and make the salt reuseable again.

Given a room with 1000 cubic feet air volume at 80'F and 80% relative humidity, there's about 1.4 lbs of water moisture present. So about half a pound of dried calcium chloride will absorb most of that moisture.

Do note, calcium chloride generates heat as it absorbs water. Whether this effect will be great enough to affect attempts to cool a space, I'm not sure."

--https://www.reddit.com/r/preppers/comments/1340iot/anyone_have_experience_using_rock_salt_as_a/

they recommend calcium chloride, about 1.5 lbs will be enough for a room 10x10x10 at 80% humidity.

But a drafty barn?? is the draft more helpful or more harmful? is it condensation that harms photographs or just humidity??

Joshua Myrvaagnes wrote:Wow, score one for Reddit:

"Calcium chloride, which you can buy as a ice melt product in many places, was used in bulk as desiccant/dehumidifier before A/C and electrical dehumidifiers were common. Application of it for this purpose was often as simple as having a 55 gallon drum filled with the salt placed in the area that needed dehumidifed (warehouses, silage silos, cold rooms, etc.).

Completely dry calcium chloride will absorb about 3 times its weight in moisture at 90% relative humidity - in which it can literally become a wet slurry, being so effective in absorbing water from the air. In comparison, common silica gel only absorbs about a 1/3 of its weight in moisture before being too saturated. Heating the salt at 212'F+ will drive off the trapped moisture and make the salt reuseable again.

Given a room with 1000 cubic feet air volume at 80'F and 80% relative humidity, there's about 1.4 lbs of water moisture present. So about half a pound of dried calcium chloride will absorb most of that moisture.

Do note, calcium chloride generates heat as it absorbs water. Whether this effect will be great enough to affect attempts to cool a space, I'm not sure."

--https://www.reddit.com/r/preppers/comments/1340iot/anyone_have_experience_using_rock_salt_as_a/

they recommend calcium chloride, about 1.5 lbs will be enough for a room 10x10x10 at 80% humidity.

But a drafty barn?? is the draft more helpful or more harmful? is it condensation that harms photographs or just humidity??

I spent 24 years teaching high school chemistry.  I haven't checked the numbers, but, the idea is sound.

Well I always trust someone on the internet, especially with the name Swindler (just kidding and sorry, I'm sure you get that all the time, but for the rest of us it's the first).  Thanks for the reply.  I am probably going to get some calcium chloride now.

I will add that the reddit poster says the stuff can get reused by drying it at 212 degrees for some period of time.

I was thinking let's say you cook on a cooktop once a day, you can make a separate box with a door that closes that is directly accessed by the side-and-down-drafting flame/hot air and gets sucked out the chimney (vs. the parts that are cooktop blocked off from the flames).  You'd put your calcium chloride in there, and take it out when you're done cooking, and voila.  I'm not sure how long it takes to cook it.  But if it's got to send 1.5 lbs or 5 lbs of water up the chimney that will take a little while.

Alternately, it could be put in a solar cooker with an open lid (not a solar oven, a parabolic style one) for a day.  Then you'd need two batches of calcium chloride to swap out, probably, and it would  require a bit more human discipline...

I am also thinking this could be a game-changer for the wet wofati problem, which I surmise will be what we have when we start trying to build them in wetter climates than Montana.  The wwofati, as I will now call it, will need a passive system.  Maybe a big drum of calcium chloride is the best way to go about it--then dry it in the winter through just air and time? will that work fast enough?  

Some caution should be used in this--not sure what materials will hold calcium chloride, but it seems it eats through metal.

Also, if it is boiled, it melts and then forms a solid block on cooling, so it will be useless.  

I think air drying is better.  It could in fact buffer and act as a humidifier in winter??  If not, is there some other substance that would work better (and not mold)?

Joshua Myrvaagnes wrote:Well I always trust someone on the internet, especially with the name Swindler (just kidding and sorry, I'm sure you get that all the time, but for the rest of us it's the first).    

Not as often as my Dad did.  He was Reverend Swindler.

Joshua Myrvaagnes wrote:Some caution should be used in this--not sure what materials will hold calcium chloride, but it seems it eats through metal.

Also, if it is boiled, it melts and then forms a solid block on cooling, so it will be useless.  

I think air drying is better.  It could in fact buffer and act as a humidifier in winter??  If not, is there some other substance that would work better (and not mold)?

He's got a point.  We used it in the bottom of desiccators to absorb moisture from the air.  We dried it before every experiment.  And, kept it in glass jars, and, the desiccators are glass.  I would either use glass jars or maybe try plastic buckets.  The calcium chloride you buy as ice melt comes in plastic bags, so plastic is probably fine.  
Drying it before it gets mushy is way easier.  For high school we used small enough amounts that a glass tray in a toaster oven did the trick.  I've never used a house type oven, just toaster ovens or incubators.