Most photos are now digital, raising the need for safe and reliable storage.<br />Park Se-young shares with us a number of options for keeping and managing your digital memories.<br />Digital photo collections are more compact compared to boxes of photographs, but it's difficult to say which method of storage is safer.<br />For instance, standard print photographs can still be recognized when partly damaged or stained.<br />However, digital files can vanish even if they're partly damaged.<br />This is why the method of digital file storage is important.<br />There are three major types of digital storage: magnetic, semiconductor and optical.<br />Magnetic storage writes digital data as magnetic patterns on magnetic tapes or disks inside audio and video tapes, floppy disks and hard disk drives.<br />It was once a common form of data storage, but its use has been on decline due to the slow reading and writing speed.<br />Semiconductor storage records data as electrons.<br />Data is saved by sending energized electrons to the floating gate, where all data is recorded, ...and deleted by attracting the electrons away from the floating gate.<br />USB flash drives, memory cards and solid-state drives are all made of semiconductors.<br />Semiconductor devices are commonly used due to their small size and fast speed, but data can be easily lost due to shocks or errors.<br />In an ordinary environment, …experts say the lifespan of a hard disk is approximately five years …while that of a solid state drive is about three years.<br />To safely store data over the long term, the best option is optical discs like DVDs and Blu-ray discs that write and read data using laser technology.<br />If the discs are properly stored, the data can even be passed on down generations.<br />"Because DVDs and Blu-rays can store data for about 100 years, your valuable data can be preserved for long periods of time without losing it.<br />As for photos and videos of important memories, experts say they should not be kept only in computers and phones …but backed up often.<br />Park Se-young, Arirang News.<br />
