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CD/DVD is not good media for archiving important data.

I've been transferring all our old home movies from VHS to DVD. The VHS copies were degrading, with lots of dropouts. I was hoping the DVDs would be more robust, but now I see they're not.

So what is a good medium for preserving something as precious as videos of my kids growing up?

I have read all the comments by various posters and want to make some comments to everyone in general. I am likewise more concerned about the longevity of the storage media and the working hardware being available to read it than I am about file format compatibility. I expect some media to outlast others. I suggest a parallel backup strategy using several media types to hedge your bets. For instance, DVD-RAM and Magneto-Optical don’t use dyes and may last longer than CDs and DVDs, provided the plastic substrate does not crack from age (as I have already seen with CDs). The downside is that those technogies and their drives are proprietary. There are also archival-grade CDs and DVDs available. Mothballing new hardware for future access may not ultimately work because electronics that are not used seem to fail sooner than electronics that are left on. Why? Some electronic components, such as electrolytic capacitors (found on many circuit boards) go bad much sooner if not used.

Get one or more big USB attached drives. Always have more than one copy of your important JPGs, MPGs, WMV, etc. Pass one or more of these on to family members. That way, if your house burns down, is flooded, etc., you will still have your memories around. When you need to get a bigger drive, don’t wipe out the old one but keep it around as yet another layer of backup. I personally don’t have any important media file in fewer than three places.

The attached drives are cheap and are much more durable than DVD’s. It will also be a lot easier to copy all of you movies for your kids from a single drive rather than dozens of DVD’s particularly when you can’t remember where you left or loaned out some of those DVDs.

I particularly like the 2.5 inch attached drives as the good ones are small enough to comfortably fit in a coat pocket and don’t require an external power source other than the USB cable. You can easily take them on a trip to share movies with out an out of town family member and get a copy of their media files while you are at it.

I've been transferring all our old home movies from VHS to DVD. The VHS copies were degrading, with lots of dropouts. I was hoping the DVDs would be more robust, but now I see they're not.

DVDs are much more robust than VHS. Every time you play a VHS tape, it comes in contact with the read heads and the image is degraded.

You are hearing horror stories in this thread, but CDs and DVDs are currently the best archival storage solution for an ordinary consumer.

For something really important like your children's videos, transfer those to DVD and use a very good brand. Make two or three copies (e.g. one for use, one for a backup at home and another for an off-sight backup in case of fire).

Every year or two, make some additional backup copies on new media just to be safe.

It is especially important to get film photographs transferred to CD and the sooner the better while the negatives are not degraded.

Flash drives and memory cards are not currently long term storage solutions. Disk arrays (RAID) are not backup solutions either - they are availability solutions.