When i was a kid, photos came in physical form, both as prints and as negatives. These could be stored in different locations, although most of the time they would be stored in the same location.
These days it's all digital photos, and i think most people agree that some kind of backup is needed. If you primarily use a cloud service, there is probably little risk that your data suddenly vanishes (though it has happened), but instead you're faced with the danger of losing access to that account, meaning your stuff might still exist, you just no longer have access to it.
My "normal" backup routing is simply "iCloud -> Mac Mini -> external harddrive + OneDrive", and the Raspberry Pi and Kopia is a (long running) test to eventually replace time machine.
As for the M-disc archive, it's a convenient and low cost way of creating resilient backups of my photos that doesn't require me to print everything. The archive will survive a lot more hardship than your average digital media, and does not require somewhat frequent usage to retain information. Harddrives lose their charge after 5-7 years of sitting unused, SSDs in as little as 2 years. Blu-Ray media will retain information for decades, and (according to the sales brochure) M-disc will retain information for a millenium, which i assume is about 900+ years longer than i need it to.
In theory, i could simply ditch the remote backup and rely on the M-disc media, but that's where convenience comes into play.
These days it's all digital photos, and i think most people agree that some kind of backup is needed. If you primarily use a cloud service, there is probably little risk that your data suddenly vanishes (though it has happened), but instead you're faced with the danger of losing access to that account, meaning your stuff might still exist, you just no longer have access to it.
My "normal" backup routing is simply "iCloud -> Mac Mini -> external harddrive + OneDrive", and the Raspberry Pi and Kopia is a (long running) test to eventually replace time machine.
As for the M-disc archive, it's a convenient and low cost way of creating resilient backups of my photos that doesn't require me to print everything. The archive will survive a lot more hardship than your average digital media, and does not require somewhat frequent usage to retain information. Harddrives lose their charge after 5-7 years of sitting unused, SSDs in as little as 2 years. Blu-Ray media will retain information for decades, and (according to the sales brochure) M-disc will retain information for a millenium, which i assume is about 900+ years longer than i need it to.
In theory, i could simply ditch the remote backup and rely on the M-disc media, but that's where convenience comes into play.