Recordable media lifespan

[holden]

Figured this was the relevant place for this, since many of you probably use Cds for backing up files:
http://msn.pcworld.com/news/article/...0.asp?GT1=7645

This confirms a fear of mine, that CDs are not the lifelong data storers they claim to be. Sucks if i end up losing all the music i've put on CD-R, often because i felt it was superior to the cassette versions i used to own! Ironic. A related concern is for everyone making Cds of digipix...without a hardcopy print, you could lose everything!

Discuss?!

[esaias]

Most of my CD-R from the 96-00 era have already detoriated to unusable state, CD-R's are bad media. If you have some really important data you want to back up for sure, go for DAT/DLT tape, they're usually promised to maintaid their data for 30+years if stored properly. Cheaper and easier method is store everything on a good quality harddrive and store that in a good place.

DVD-R is worse backup media than CD-R beacuse it is more sensitive to physical damage.

Shiver runs down on my spine because I haven't backed up my studio computer over a year :E

-Tomi

[votingfloater]

Arsebiscuits! Looks like I'll be shelling out for a new HD then...

[esaias]

Make sure that it is not Matrox :P

Samsung or Seagate is a good choice.

-Tomi

[viddy]

Data is rediculous! I'm running about 500 gigs across multiple drives in HD space, and I've already filled it up! No only should I look into getting another drive for more work space but a very large raid array for archival purposes only.

This is getting really expensive.

[COLOR=DarkSlateBlue]there seem to be contradictions: on this forum people say there's a lifetime of decades?[/COLOR]

[King of Snake]

Originally Posted by esaias

Most of my CD-R from the 96-00 era have already detoriated to unusable state, CD-R's are bad media.
-Tomi

afaik most of my cd-r's from that era are still working fine
I don't really use them that often so maybe they've all turned bad in the meantime though

[holden]

Originally Posted by Lou

[COLOR=darkslateblue]there seem to be contradictions: on this forum people say there's a lifetime of decades?[/COLOR]

Yeah, it's hard to know for sure, because the tests of lifespan are obviously under the worst conditions and accellerated, then extrapolated. But they raise a lot of good points...e.g. quick burns being less stable, cheapo-brand Cds having inferior dyes, solvents from markers degrading the more-fragile topside of the disk, etc.

i'm very careful with my CD collection, because i've put a lot of time into it. But the way technology is going, i fear i will have to transfer everything to another format eventually anyway...just hope the data's still there when i go to do this!