How long do unburned cdrs last?

[orbz]

How long can unburned cdrs be stored before they must be burned?

I have some Maxell CDR-80 12x cdrs that I guess are 2-3 yrs old. They come in slim jewel cases and are made in Japan by Hitachi Maxell.

I have tried burning them in my LG 16x at speeds of 16x, 12x, and 8x. I use CD-Speed to do a scan disc or quality test. At 16x and 12x, I get almost all damaged sectors with some unreadable and a lot of errors but at 8x, I get some damaged sectors and errors.

This kinda sucks and I wonder want kinda of quality I would have gotten if I burned these earlier.

[burninfool]

As long as you keep the CD's in their case and away from sunlight and extreme heat they should last a long time but not 99 years like the manufacturers say.One problem with modern writers is they are optimized for writing at >16x.

[RJW]

I can still burn fine Emtec Ceram Guards 1-12x made by TY infact I could still burn them at 40x on my Lite ON 48246S (Which won't be RMA-ed for christmas it seems !(allmost 10 weeks waiting now !)) with only a small increasement in errors. But then again The CMC and Lead data disc's of the same age can't be burned fine !

It all depends on:
A Media quality
B Media support by current generation burners.
C Storage

[orbz]

Thanks guys.

I just found a couple of old gold Maxells that are Made in Mexico that I think I got back in the 2x days and they burn with no errors at 16x.