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DVDs from two different major brands stored in two different physical locations (ie. one at home, another at work, etc) - be sure to check the location of manufacture, since that can vary even within the same brand; economy no-name / bulk packs are often of lessor quality...
Do some research on-line of the various DVD brands / location of manufacture / quality, etc.
I have DVDs upwards of 5 years old and still quite readable. On a related note, writable DVDs, despite having a much higher density, are of a far more reliable design than writable CDs, which often tended to degrade dramatically within months.
Hard Drives are NOT suitable for longterm backup use for numerous reasons ... hardware compatibility, degradation over time, starting up a HD after it's been sitting unused for many years lead to catastrophic failure; DVDs tend to be more forgiving - often much data can still be recovered using simple tools.
As crazy as it sounds, magnetic tape can be a good longterm inexpensive backup medium, assuming a decent brand and is stored properly; two copies in two different physical environmentally controlled locations.
Other backup methods include paper - data encoded as small dots onto paper tape / sheets of paper; think scantron, but more advanced.
For content you shoot yourself and/or have purchased exclusively, the negatives will outlive most all electronic backup methods - see my comment above about backing up onto paper, which is likely the only one of the methods discussed so far that would potentially survive longer than negatives.
Lastly, read up on the approaches the U.S. Library of Congress and other govt agencies are using to archive data ... they have for more important data to lose than basically anyone here on GFY, so the methods they use are likely more than adequate for your needs.
Ron
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Domagon - Website Management and Domain Name Sales
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