datahoarder
Who are we?
We are digital librarians. Among us are represented the various reasons to keep data -- legal requirements, competitive requirements, uncertainty of permanence of cloud services, distaste for transmitting your data externally (e.g. government or corporate espionage), cultural and familial archivists, internet collapse preppers, and people who do it themselves so they're sure it's done right. Everyone has their reasons for curating the data they have decided to keep (either forever or For A Damn Long Time). Along the way we have sought out like-minded individuals to exchange strategies, war stories, and cautionary tales of failures.
We are one. We are legion. And we're trying really hard not to forget.
-- 5-4-3-2-1-bang from this thread
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If you don't need to scan transparencies (slides and negatives) then an Epson Perfection V39 (or any in that series) is pretty good. If you do need transparencies then the Perfection V850 Pro (or any in that series) is best. The former is a lot cheaper than the latter!
On the software side of things, there are many options. I use XSane on Linux, but there's lots of other ones. A general rule of thumb for 8x10 prints is to scan at 900dpi 16bit colour (even black and white) to TIFF or PNG. There are plenty of archival institutions who publish their rules for digitization, e.g. the NAA.
This! I wanted to digitalize postcards from the end of the 1800s and everyone suggested me either perfection V600 or V850. I postponed buying one because I only had less than 50 cards back then. I will look into V39 for sure too. It looks like a perfectly valid alternative.
FYI, the V600 is CCX (excellent quality but very expensive) while the V39 is CIS (okay quality but much cheaper).