# Archiving Files



## FEP (Dec 11, 2017)

Hello,
Are SD cards and micro-SD cards reliable as archival storage media?
Thanks.


----------



## qmr55 (Dec 11, 2017)

I would suggest against that. I'd probably buy an external hard drive to back everything up on, if I was you.

For two reasons: 1) more reliable & 2)harder to lose!


----------



## 480sparky (Dec 11, 2017)

I would suggest you purchase *three *external drives and copy everything on to all three.

Then keep them in three separate buildings.


----------



## FEP (Dec 12, 2017)

Kingston gives lifetime warranty on their SD cards.  Does that mean that the cards do not degrade for a lifetime? And therefore the data remains intact for a lifetime?
Thanks.


----------



## 480sparky (Dec 12, 2017)

Their warranty only covers replacement cards.  It WILL NOT cover any lost files.

NO ONE guarantees that.


----------



## bratkinson (Dec 12, 2017)

Sparky gave the best answer...3 drives, 3 locations.  If you live in southern California, one location should be in Nevada somewhere.  Using the cloud is a good choice, but you'll have to pay monthly fees forever and risk your images being stolen more easily.

As for SD cards, HOW would you physically label them to show date, venue, people, etc?  And being able to find something quickly?  

I'm probably an oddball, as I use a separate folder for every event, date, vacation, family date, etc.  That makes it easy to find 'such and such' from November 2015, for example.  But finding 'Uncle Joe' across 10-15 years worth of images...quite time consuming.  Adobe Lightroom provides a fantastic catalog system, but I choose not to use it.


----------



## FEP (Dec 12, 2017)

The lifetime warranty on SD cards does not apply across all brands.  That suggests that different brands of SD cards have different quality.  Is it therefore true that the brands that offer lifetime warranty are better than those who offer 2-5 yr warranty?

How is an SD card of one brand be different in physical constitutes from another?

Of course,  comparisons are between cards of same size and speed (write or read).


----------



## 480sparky (Dec 13, 2017)

You pay more and get a lifetime warranty.  You're paying for the warranty, not an über-fantastic card.


----------

