According to the 2008 PMA U.S. Digital Imaging Survey, in 2007 U.S. households store the largest number of digital images on CDs/DVDs compared to any other storage method. Digital camera households, on average, store 953 digital images on CDs/DVDs. On average, fewer images are stored on the hard drive (844 images) and the external hard drive (701 images). U.S. households store an average of 277 digital images online.
  Sixty-nine percent of households felt that their stored images were at least somewhat safe while 18 percent felt that they were at least somewhat unsafe. The remainder of households declared that they were neither safe nor unsafe. On a scale of one to five with one being very unsafe and five being very safe, the average safety rating for stored images was 3.7, according to PMA Marketing Research.
  DVDs were deemed the safest storage method by U.S. digital camera households with the highest average safety rating (3.9) of all methods. Seventy-eight percent feel that images stored on DVD are at least somewhat safe. Only 14 percent feel that images stored on DVD were at least somewhat unsafe. External hard drives and CDs followed DVDs a safety rating of 3.8, once again above average. Paid online storage received an average safety rating of 3.5, the poorest rating among all methods of storage. Only 66 percent of households felt that paid online storage was at least somewhat safe and 25 percent felt that the images were at least somewhat unsafe. The printer's memory and other storage methods also received below average safety ratings.