Just a note that putting lots and lots of pictures on a single card without a backup/copy someplace is Not A Good Idea. Flash drives/cards can get corrupted. While there is software out there that can recover them, it does not always work. It's also easy to lose one of those tiny things. Something to consider as the prices of large memory cards/flash drives gets lower and lower. Spreading out photo files among several cards or drives may be a pain, but it limits your losses if one goes unrecoverable.

Well I've heard CD's, DVD's and External Drives...HAve done the cd's, as of yet I need to transfer to external drive thats been sitting here...I lost a bunch of pics on another computer so I must say to use the easiest you can do with the time you have and are familiar with, NOW...Then make time to do on whatever else source you decide. Mine are saved as jpg's.

CD storage is ok if burned to a quality CD. A few years ago, some inexpensive CDs had a problem with the reflective backing. Also, you must protect CDs from elevated temperature. Higher than normal room temperature may allow the media to relax and dull the data pits. Copying data to a new CD every 5 years is recomended practice. Archival quality CDs should be used if you can find ones with this identification. Your instructor recommended flash drives (AKA thumb drives). I disagree. Flash drives are only a little better than CDs. Flash drives may have evloved since they were first introduced, but I have not heard anything to the contrary. Before I retired, I watched their development in trade magazines and this is my information (15 years old). Flash drives have a "keep alive" battery inside. A voltage source is required to maintain the states of the storage junctions. The current draw is very little, but the data will dissappear if the voltage fails. A lithium-ion battery technology was chosen because it was one type that can hold a charge for a long time. Typical life is 10 years. After that, the thunb drive may become unreliable. Recommended practice: Copy data to a new flash drive every 7 years and toss the old drive (after it has been cleaned of data or destroyed). When buying a flash drive, make sure it is a new one and not one that has been sitting on the shelf for several years. Keep in mind that the life of the unit depends on the life of the internal battery. The jucntions of flash drives do wear out. A junction is good for about 10,000 rewrites and then it may fail. To address this problem, there is an algorithm built in that causes data writes to move around the chip such that all of the storage area gets used equally. Therefore, your archived data should be put on flash drives that are not used very much. Flash drives used as a hard drive experienceing thousands of writes/rewrites will eventually fail. The smaller the capacity, the sooner it will fail. Very large capacity drives will last longer since each junction gets written less often. Do not store your data on a flash drive that is used for games. Thousands of rewrites can occur over the life of a game. Static charges imparted to the electrodes of a flash drive can destroy it, or at minimum, corrupt the data.

If you have these in digital form, I suggest that you print the most treasured ones on good photo paper to serve as a backup. Store these flat with a non-stick archival quality separators between each photo, better yet, slip each photo into an archival quality sheet protector. Sheet protector can be found at office supply stores. Lowest cost per protector is to buy by the box-full. Include with each photo place, date taken, and names of people. If the photo was taken at an event, name that event for example, Thanksgiving day at Bill Jone's house. If something out of the ordinary happened, also record it, for example, Billy chipped a tooth while sledding on the hill behind the house. These little notes tells a family history that would otherwise be forgotten in the future. Mow, about digital storage. The problem here is to pick something that can be read 10 to 20 years or more later. PCs and personal recording media has changed rapidly over the past 20 years with the result that older media can not be read because the technology was abandoned as new and better things came along; think 5.25" floppies, 3.5" floppies, superdisk, various tapes, and recently, CDs. Today, of this list, the average PC can read only the CD and believe it or not, the CD is going away, too. I keep one computer equipped to read 3.5" floppies for retrieval purposes. In a pinch, I can still read and write 5.25 floppies (That's caveman era for a computer.) I have been storing photos on CDs, but last winter I took a genealogy course and the instructor convinced me that CDs may go away within 10 years if not sooner. She advised the class to store records on DVDs as these will still be around after the stores stop selling CDs. A DVD holds so much more data than a CD and that spells the end to the CD. I brought up my concern that I thought that a CD was a more secure recording media than a DVD owing to its larger 'spot' size; DVDs spot size is extremely small and more easily damaged or corrupted. The instructor said maybe so, but the DVD has been developed enough to take over and it will. CDs are going away. She urged the class to copy their genelogical data and photos to DVDs She also recommended to use archival quality DVDs. These cost more but have a better backing material. One has to seach to find these because most stores stock only the average disc, but if you treasure your data, you'll use archival quality media for long term storage. You can store mountains of data on external hard drives and at a very resonable cost. These should be drives that are not used on a daily basis, only for data storage and retrieval. Again, if you depend on these, keep aware of changing technology in the interface between the drive and computer. If you buy an external drive today, i'll most likely have a USB port. Just think, a little over 10 years ago, there were no USB. The ports could change again in the next 20 years and you'll need to shift your data to another media. One caveat: A DVD may better survive the shock of a drop than a hard drive. Some may be tempted to use "Thumb Drives" for permanent storage. These have solid state memories, no moving parts, and are very compact. This is very tempting, but I do not recommended it. There are technical reasons. The storage junctions are good for about 10,000 read/write cycles before failue. Manufacturers have develped schemes to use all the junctions by moving partitions in memory so that eventually, every junction gets used. This spreads the useage over the entire drive. This process is transparent to the user. This feature made possible commercialization of the product and for the average home user, he's unlikely to run into the wear-out problem. However, a gamer might. The second feature is that the memory is volatile; It requires a voltage source to keep the memory "alive". Fortunately, the current drain is extremely small for this task and can be provided by a small, long life battery, Typically a lithium battery. This is the thumb drive's achilles heel. Eventually, that batteriy will fade and the drive will be scrap. About 10 years is expected. Again, this technology is a moving target and some day, we might see thumb-drives with non-volatile memory. But for now, I recommend thumb-drives only for temporary storage. I would not depend on one to hold data for 15 years. Some folks may give up on managing data storage and opt for the cloud. Wonderful, but how sure are you that the business model for cloud computing will survive? (The instructor I mentioned is well grounded in this technology. She teaches classes to certify IT people for MicroSoft Windows Support and maintence.) Fifty years from now when we are dead and gone and our media trashed, think about a future family genealogist discovering that backup box of photos and the notes that go with them. She/he will be joyful and will suddently become an expert family historian. It is advised that you print all photos, notes, and text on acid free paper with fade resistant ink. You can't beat hard copy for endurance. Geez, I've almost convinced my self to start scrap booking my genealogy family data. I could include historical happenings such as presidental elections, war beginings and endings, photos of schools and other public buildings that are scheduled for tear down, etc.