One of my hobbies is photography. I take photos of just about everything, but my favorite subjects are my kids! I document virtually all of their moments on my digital camera or my smartphone. Their memories, our memories. My family teases me that I am really great at capturing even the smallest milestone. Hey! At least my kids will have documentation of their childhood, right? Well, about a year ago, my computer crashed. I lost almost 2 years worth of photos and videos as well as our business and personal information. Try as they may, the guys at the computer shop were unable to recover anything. I was heartbroken and determined to never allow that to happen again. What if this happened to you? What are you doing to protect your important data? This post about protecting personal data is brought to you by our friends at MomItForward and M-Disc.
What do you consider important enough to protect and save? The most popular includes family photos, music libraries, videos, genealogy, business records and data, and medical records. While many people use their computer’s hard drive to store this information, others will use standard recordable DVD’s to store much of this information. (And by others, I mean people like me. I have approximately 57 CD’s and DVD’s of images from the past 10 years of parenting).
A small fraction of our hard drive and CD/DVD collection of photo and file storage.
The issue with going this route is, it turns out, that they have a short shelf life. Um, I wasn’t exactly aware of this detail. I’ve not seen it on the packaging when I have gotten those CDs and DVDs and stuff?!?! WHAT?!
Credit: DollarPhotoClub
That’s right, friends. Traditional storage can deteriorate over time, suffer from natural decay and degradation and jeopardize your precious data. Thankfully, M-DISCs (DVD+M) are a logical and solid solution to your storage needs. The products from M-DISC are designed to last up to 1,000 years, are reliable and secure, resists physical and chemical change, including light, temperature, humidity, and more. The M-DISC products protects your data for a lifetime and have even been proven by tests performed by the U.S. Department of Defense! Now that makes me feel good!
What makes the M-DISC products different from writable DVD’s is they are able to preserve and protect your files by actually engraving your information into a patented rock-like layer, resistant to light, temperature, humidity, and so much more. With the M-DISC products, you have a unique storage solution that preserves photos, video, and important documents. When you use M-DISC products, you are creating a “hard copy” (something you can actually hold in your hands) of your treasured memories, and important information. While this process, called “archiving”, was typically used by businesses and universities, it is becoming popular with people like you and me.
M-DISC is the brand leader in personal archiving because their products are affordable and you know you are getting practically a lifetime guarantee your personal data will be protected. What has been discovered is our digital images and video are more fragile and more difficult to preserve over long periods of time than we knew. I mean, look at me. I thought my computer was an infallible place to store my precious data. Boy was I wrong and it turns out, many people make the same mistake. People believe digital information written to a hard drive or flash drive will last forever. It turns out these devices were never designed for long-term archiving, but rather they are y’re built for quick access like writing, sharing, and transferring.
It turns our “31% of all PC users suffer from data loss each year.” (Gartner Technology Research). In fact a survey conducted by Kroll Ontrack of companies that use the cloud revealed that “53 percent of those surveyed have experienced five incidents of virtual data loss in the past year alone, with 12 percent reporting even more than that.” What methods are you taking to protect your personal data? Are you burning it onto a CD or DVD? There is a big difference between making a music mix CD and storing your wedding video! No, you want an M-DISC product which will hold data for 1,000 years, are resistant to heat, humidity, magnetism, and EMP and can hold up to 100 gigabytes of information on a single M-DISC! If companies like NASA, The White House, The Department of Defense, Harvard University, and Warner Brothers trust M-DISC, can’t you? Please see the 2 minute video located here:
Debbie Denny says
Gosh I will have to check this out. I have been storing on disks and zip drives.
Amber C. says
I will have to look into this because I keep all our pics and family videos on a disc! I would hate to have years of memories lost!
Ashley - Embracing Homemaking says
Posts like this terrify me because I know I don’t do enough. I NEED to take action. Thank you for the reminder. 🙂
Ann Bacciaglia says
Wow i did not know CD’s and DVD’s had such a short shelf life. I am going to look into switching to M disk.
Natalie Z says
I use an external hard drive. However when I misplace it or think about the unexpected, I keep meaning to find a backup plan. Thanks for sharing this!
Christie says
I had no idea my traditional discs can deteriorate so quickly! Such good info to consider when backing up files
Beth@FrugalFroggie says
Just last year I had a computer crash. Thankfully I was able to get the data off of the computer but it took for ever.
Sabrina @ Dinner, then Dessert says
We have a portable hard drive to back up our data. We should probably back up our data more often though!
Valerie says
I have a portable hard drive that I keep my pictures on. It is great there is an option like this!
Jeanine says
Wow, this is interesting. I wanted to buy an external hard drive to keep all my personal things, photos etc but this is something I need to look into!
Pam says
I had no idea that traditional storage could deteriorate over time. I need to get these discs.
Brandy says
It is so important to back up and back up your files, I have a home server which is currently being fixed so it is driving me bonkers not having my back up handy. I like this option for when my server is down or at my ex husband’s house getting fixed.
Liz Mays says
It’s good to know there is a reliable way to store data. I have so much I need to transfer to storage.
Ora Lee Gurr says
Thanks for the great information about M Disc. I would like to never experience the heartbreak of losing my documents and pictures again. I’ll get some this weekend and preserve everything for posterity. I had no clue flash drives and CDs did not last forever.
Kristi says
Technology…. I feel like we are at the mercy of it. Thanks for letting us know of a more secure way to save all those photos!
Dawn says
Holy impending disaster! I had no idea! I’ve got to get some M discs and transfer all my data from my CDs immediately.
Melissa Pezza says
OMG, that is so crazy! I thought CDs and DVDs lasted forever. I have a Blu-ray player/burner in my computer, so I’ll have to go out and get some of these.
Stacie @ Divine Lifestyle says
Thank you so much for sharing this! I had no idea that DVDs could deteriorate over time, and I have a TON of things backed up on them.
Toni | BoulderLocavore says
I also do photography and recently began shooting in RAW which is a huge space consumer. I’ve been trying to come up with a solution to back everything up and had a back up drive fail! I really need to investigate this as an option.
Rosey says
I love to take pictures of my kiddos too!
And I think we have had some kind of experience with unprotected data. It’s absolutely no fun at all!! I love that there are more and more options becoming available to help. I also like that these discs sounds so durable!! That’s important with something like this kind of product.