  Many memory institutions hold large collections of hand-held media, which can
comprise hundreds of terabytes of data spread over many thousands of
data-carriers. Many of these carriers are at risk of significant physical
degradation over time, depending on their composition. Unfortunately, handling
them manually is enormously time consuming and so a full and frequent
evaluation of their condition is extremely expensive. It is, therefore,
important to develop scalable processes for stabilizing them onto backed-up
online storage where they can be subject to highquality digital preservation
management. This goes hand in hand with the need to establish efficient,
standardized ways of recording metadata and to deal with defective
data-carriers. This paper discusses processing approaches, workflows, technical
set-up, software solutions and touches on staffing needs for the stabilization
process. We have experimented with different disk copying robots, defined our
metadata, and addressed storage issues to scale stabilization to the vast
quantities of digital objects on hand-held data-carriers that need to be
preserved. Working closely with the content curators, we have been able to
build a robust data migration workflow and have stabilized over 16 terabytes of
data in a scalable and economical manner.
