Hi! Last night i backed up all the family digital photos that were lying around on our laptop. Now i got to thinking what would be the best place to store them? First thing that came to mind was the fridge, but because the constant opening and closing this could lead to moisture problems, right?
If you were imphasizing fire protection, just keep copies of the disc(s) in your car, as well as your house. If they are in plastic jewel cases they should be protected well enough.
a dark, cool place is the best place to keep discs with their longevity in mind. keeps them in jewel cases or slips, and put them in a shoebox/disc case/etc on a shelf at the top of a closet or something. if you have a safe/vault large enough, that would work well, too.
What the other folks have posted are all good secondary steps. The first step is to use good media, and to make double copies, preferably on two different kinds of high-quality media (i.e. Verbatim, or anything Made in Japan). Also, spot check a copy every once in awhile.
Like Dunker said use good quality media. I have about 10,000 photos of family, vacations-ect. I always make three copies . One goes to my safe deposit box at the bank, and the other goes to my sisters house to keep for me. Good media is cheep, the pictures are priceless.
Keep your burned media stored vertiacally in cases. The environment you keep the disc in shouldn't fluctuate, so keep the disc(s) in a room with consistant tempertatures between 60-80 degrees fahrenheit.
Problem with storing them horizontally is that if you lay it on a surface that isn't perfectly flat, any weight on the edges will warp the disc. That's why it's okay to ship and store on the spindles because all of the discs lay perfectly flat on the base. Cool, dry place out of the light. Moisture, excessive heat or cold, and sunlight will decompose the chemical dye and kill your discs without you even knowing it because the damage is not visible.
