Can y’all recommend how I might preserve and archive 46 gigabytes of personal data for the long haul?

For the past thirty years the librarian in me has been preserving and archiving my personal and professional data. It started out as a few text files, a couple of .exe files, the rare MacWrite file, and a growing number of HyperCard “stacks”. Then I moved away from proprietary word processing files and migrated to plain text documents as much as possible. These included scholarly documents, computer programs, and selected email messages in the form of mbox files. Still various flavors of images, movies, and PDF crept into my mix. And believe it or not, I print some of my text files, and I have printed major components of my images. 

For a while 3.5” discs were sufficient as a storage medium, but the pile grew and grew. I then moved to CD’s — migrating my 3.5” discs along the way — and the pile grew and grew again. Five years ago I migrated to DVD, and that was good for a bit (all puns intended). But now, as I catch up I have discovered that my archival output is close to 46 gigabytes of data just for the year 2014. Much of this data is really images, but not just pictures of my pet, but rather a sort of story.

What medium do you think I should use for archival preservation and storage? At 4 GB/DVD, I can’t afford to burn more than 10 DVD’s/year. That’s impractical. I want something that is device and operating system independent. CD’s were good choices, and I only needed to migrate things forward. DVD’s are okay, but I believe they write data in a compressed/encrypted fashion. I shy away from external hard drives because the are less likely to work with future computers, and besides, they have so many moving parts and complicated electronics. Just more things to break. 

I’m leaning towards SD disks, but yikes, they are nothing but pure bits. Moreover, they are physically very small and easily lost. 

What do y’all suggest?

† My iPhone is to blame. At more than 5 megapixels per image, the amount of disc space taken up by pictures is phenomenal. I suppose I could “weed” my images, but then much of the story would be lost, even if I printed. 

—
Eric Morgan