Photo Storage

As you know I recently moved to a new town and for the first time in almost forever I realised how many photos I had accumulated over the years.  Photos of my children, holidays, friends, parties, my cars, pets, homes, etc etc.  These are all photos in hard copy, not digital.


Now I have a digital camera and my photos are not in hard copy but I do have a bigger dilemma about storage.  I started simply downloading the photos onto my computer and then I realized if my computer crashed I could lose them all.  Downloading them onto a CD seemed like a good idea but, contrary to what we have been led to believe, CD's do not last forever so once again my digital photos are not safe.


Next I thought perhaps a memory stick would do the trick.  Now I'm not too sure.  How long does a memory stick last?  I do know that they can become faulty and you can lose data that has been stored on them so, once again, back to the drawing board.


Now I have no idea how to keep my photos safe.  I've thought about using an external hard drive but what I know about them you could write on the head of a pin with a mop.  So, does anyone know how I can store my digital photos safely? 


Of course I could always print them out but I have very little storage space left and would prefer not to do this.  I'm sure there must be a better way I just don't know what it is.


Sometimes I think we outsmart ourselves with technology and I have to admit, it doesn't take much to outsmart me technologically.  So, if you know how I can store my photos safely I would love to hear from you.  They may only be happy snaps but I really don't want to lose them, like everyone's photos, they contain the story of my life.