Back up uber alles

With the advent of digital imaging, the problem of saving and archiving images has become a real pain in the you know where. When we had negatives, we had concrete items that with proper care would keep for many years when processed and stored according to archival standards. Even if not processed or stored archivally, the negatives would last for many years. This was especially true with black and white negativrs. Of course, as time marched on, there was a slow but inexorable loss of quality. With slides one saw this degradation after a decade pr so. Kodachome was the exception but it too deteriorated albeit at a slower pace. Color negatives, a relatively new items [introduced in the early sixties] the situation is a;so precarious but lessso than with color slides. With digital, we do not have any tangible item, only a string of one and zeroes plus instructions. If we shoot RAW, the problem becomes even more pronounced as each camera model produces different RAW images and new software updates are constantly needed. The only advantage is that digital images can be copied precisely, something that was impossible with negatives as copying then led to degradation. The problem is that we do not have a safe and secure way to store and preserve these files. Hard disks will inevitably fail. So we must back the files up in optical media. These are also not permanent. We really do not yet know how long a CD or DVD will last. The cause of this uncertainty is that oxygen will inevitably find it's way onto the metal layer that holds the data. Once there is oxidation, the file will be corrupted. CD's are more stable while DVD's because of their greater data density are less secure. The only thing to do is to save the images on gold CD's. These are more expensive but now have limited storage capacity. When cameras had a mere 3 or 4 mega pixels, we could save many images on CD's. Today with RAW files reaching 30 or more mega pixels. the storage problems with CD's have become serious.
What to do, that is the real question. Back up redundantly and save your best shots on the gold CD's. There's really is no other solution. Forget on line storage. Do not trust it. How many companies are still around today that were around 10 years ago? Get the picture? So back up and keep copying these images in new data as it bewcomes available. It's a lot of work, but there's no alternative. Good luck; we are going to need it.