As each day passes law enforcement and government agencies struggle with managing more sources of digital evidence and multimedia, like body worn cameras. The massive amounts of data storage required have led many to finally consider secure cloud-based storage solutions, but as some have found out, despite the minimal capital investment cloud storage costs can quickly exceed the LE & IT budgets of even the largest agencies. Let's break this down and talk specifically about digital evidence and archiving.

How are you archiving all of your digital evidence today? A tiered storage solution? Hybrid cloud solution? LTO tape? Hard drives? Optical discs (i.e. CD-R, DVD+/-R, BD-R)? Lots of questions and options, so lets talk specifically to the last group; those using optical discs.

Although disc-based storage is not as widely used as it once was for digital evidence archiving, it remains a viable solution when properly implemented and managed. In fact, many of the world’s largest technology companies are using and/or exploring disc-based storage systems for long-term offline storage of petabytes of customer data (e.g. Facebook uses 10,000 Blu-ray discs to store 'cold' data). They do so, however, in a managed environment with a thorough understanding of the medium’s strengths and limitations.

Many in law enforcement use write-once disc-based media for MASTER evidence storage, as it continues to be recommended via various industry best practice documents. Unfortunately, not everyone involved in the evidence chain understands the limitations and best practices as they relate to the care and handling of disc-based media. Adhesive labels, permanent markers, and ballpoint pens have destroyed more evidence than I care to even think about.