An image from the archives

I know I've mentioned it before, and it's embarrassing to admit again but- I'm back at it. That wretched, time consuming task of cleaning up the iphoto on my computer. It's just that hitting the 'delete' key is so final.
Although, deleting is getting easier. Just like having a yard sale in the right mood can really get rid a lot of the excess stuff from around the house.
Here is my new philosophy on photo archiving:
-instead of lumping everything onto an external drive I am:
1. Deleting all photos except the very best-of-the-best to be saved. It is not worth saving all the pictures I've ever taken, no matter how crappy, to perhaps lose the ones I really love due to a jam-packed aging storage devices.  I heard that information saved in disc format has a shelf life of about 5-6 years before data begins deteriorating. Scary.
2. Label everything, I am putting all (saved) pictures into iphoto albums so that they can be saved in categories and I can actually find the picture I'm after when I want to---> later on.
3. We have started storing photos and information on external hard drives instead of discs.  Seagate makes a good external drive, available everywhere (Staples, Best Buy or Office Depot) very easy to use, tons of storage and recommended by the film boys, like Steve O.