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Good Afternoon. I am in the middle of a debate on what is the best way to store large quantities of digital media (audio, video, and images). I have always been under the impression that for such large quantities of information and such large files a dedicated server (or servers) is the best way to go as opposed to external hard drives or CD-ROM. Our IT manager had this to say: Our servers have only lasted about 5 years before requiring replacement. I wonder what makes you think servers are appropriate for storing large amounts of data? He is suggesting that we use external hard drives or CD-ROM to store our media. I think it would be much easier to store everything on one or more servers and have the files accessible to anyone rather than having to come to me all the time to pull materials in the archives. Plus, you could migrate that information to a new server when the old one is no longer working. Any thoughts? I always thought servers that store only digital files last longer than 5 years. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Christina J. Hostetter Archivist National Press Club Archives 529 14th Street, NW Suite 480 Washington, DC 20045 202-662-7598 www.press.org/library/archives ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~