Investment
Why do you need printed photos?
The sad truth about digital data storage is that no medium for data storage will last forever. Most people save their family photos in CDs or DVDs. The experiential life expectancy of recorded CDs and DVDs is between two and five years. If you are saving your precious memories in your computer, most hard disk drives (HDD) last between three and five years before some component fails whether you’re talking about an internal drive for a server or desktop, or an external hard disk drive. Flash drives can last up to ten years. Flash memory doesn’t usually degrade because of its age, but rather because of the number of write cycles, which means the more you delete and write new information, the more quickly the memory in the device will start to degrade. A photo print will last a lifetime, and maybe a little longer, and with dark storage maybe a few hundred years. When you purchase print photography you are making an investment into the preservation of your history and the history of your family. A venture into the yesteryears of your family will help you and your descendants understand you and your ancestors better. The main advantage to learning your own history through decades old print photos is the perspective it gives you and your relatives. |