Photo Storage - A Cautionary Tale For You

Images - paintings, photographs, drawings - have always presented a challenge for the preservationist. They are subject to fire, flood, mould, rodent and insect attack, as well as theft. Sometimes the best pictures only last a short period of time.

Witness these poor relics that were found in a shoebox yesterday. Coffee cups, physical damage. fading, fugitive colour dyes...well, it is lucky that we can see anything on these.

The same can happen with your digital images, whether they are files on a computer or finished prints. Hard drives crash, computers fail to start up, files mysteriously corrupt. You might have put the images n a disc but discs go missing or fail to read.

The real answer is the Drobo system. Imagine an electronic box storing 5 industrial-grade hard drives that share the information constantly and monitor themselves. If one starts to look dodgy you get early warning and can replace the drives and the machine just repairs itself in a week.

I have mine locked in a ventilated steel box so even if thieves ransack the house they can't get my pictures of kittens and sunsets. The price is reasonable and the sense of security is priceless.

Note: I am going to try to restore the three examples in the future. It'll be a lot of work, but worth it. Those cars aren't made any more.