Storage Expert Warns Of Short Life Span For Burned CDs

[Ian]

http://computerworld.com/hardwaretopics ... 07,00.html

Although opinions vary on how to preserve data on digital storage media, such as optical CDs and DVDs, Kurt Gerecke, a physicist and storage expert at IBM Deutschland GmbH, takes this view: If you want to avoid having to burn new CDs every few years, use magnetic tapes to store all your pictures, videos and songs for a lifetime.

Magnetic tape? I guess I shouldn't be surprised considering the guy works for IBM, a company up to their eye balls in magnetic tape products. It's just not a good option for consumers. Thoughts?

[dolphinius_rex]

Hrm... magnetic tape.... where the information falls off the media if the tape is stored incorrectly, simply because of the earths magnetic pull

Put it nice to see someone ACTUALLY being accurate about CD-R lifespans. I've been telling people 2-5 years for a while now, at work... but I always tell them "or you can believe the 100 year lifespan printed on the company's propaganda... your choice"

[Scour]

Hallo!

I had cheapo CD-Rs that have don´t a lifespan of 3 years

My old VHS-tapes don´t have the best quality, but they still have no bigger probs

[vinnie97]

Conclusion: Digital (or optical) ain't all it's made out to be.

[Francksoy]

If you want to avoid having to burn new CDs every few years... use premium media and burn it in good burners.

My first CDRs are from 1995 and are just as new... I knew nothing of manufacturers at that time, but I was lucky and happened to use only Maxell and Taiyo Yuden (Sony branded) discs. Disovered that only last year actually.

With the cheap CDRs I burned during the last years, that's another story. Lost some data in my day. But since I'm back to good CDR media (MCC, TY, Ritek..) I'm very, very confident in my CDR backups!

Also the original article kinda mixed DVDR and CDR results, and I think it's rather misleading as many DVDRs have very poor stability over time. I don't think that this applies to CDR as long as one doesn't use el-cheapo media.

Tapes? No thanks. Been there. - for the paranoied, burning 2-3 CDR clones on different media is fast, cheap and just as reliable IMO.

But I'm very concerned with DVDR longevity.... even with the best out there.

[TheWizard]

Follow the storage guidelines (in a room temperature environment, away from direct sunlight, etc.) and the CD-R's will be just fine.

[dolphinius_rex]

Follow the storage guidelines (in a room temperature environment, away from direct sunlight, etc.) and the CD-R's will be just fine.

From my own experience, Ritek seems to be pretty much in the 5 year range, when the media is good quality and stored fairly well (not anal retentive-well). Taiyo Yuden didn't register degridation. Ricoh Dye did a little better then Ritek. Prodisc fell into the 2 year category fairly often, but some lasted up to 5 years. DST... don't even go there. CMC, the ones that didn't suck to begin with, held up about as well as Ritek. Gold media held up better then Taiyo Yuden even (not in initial burn quality, but in the fact that they didn't degrade!). In this case, I'm talking about the very non-existant Ritek Gold media (True Gold not fake).

At this point, I wouldn't trust Taiyo Yuden beyond 10 years (because I have no personal proof that leads me to trust it like that, yet). I'd trust good gold media more then that.

Keep in mind, the humidity levels in my area are fairly low, so in areas with high humidity, the results will almost certainly be VERY different.

[Scour]

At this point, I wouldn't trust Taiyo Yuden beyond 10 years (because I have no personal proof that leads me to trust it like that, yet). I'd trust good gold media more then that.

I can´t say much about this because my oldest TY is only 3 years old.

When I started with a CD-burner (4x), I read elsewhere that Phthalocyanin is much better in stability than Cyanin. And TY uses til today Cyanin. Verbatim used Azo, TDK maybe too? My older TDK 16x have a deep blue dye, very similar to Verbatims Metal Azo

[pranav81]

I have had a bad experience with cheap Moser Baer CD-R's.So I now use the best CD's,like Sony,LG(TY) for important data backup and crap media which I use only once or twice.

On the other hand I have HP CD-R's,which are Ricoh's.I have a dozen of them.I had burned them in 2000.They are still fine.I use them frequently,as I have photo backup's in them.

I had stored the Moser Baer's in their jewel cases and in dark place,still they died only after 1.5 years.


::Pranav::

[MediumRare]

The stuff we've used at work has shown no signs of deterioration yet (7 or 8 years for the oldest stuff)
- TDK Reflex
- Ricoh
- Verbatim DataLifePlus
(in that order).

I haven't had anything go bad in my personal collection yet either (ca. 6 years+), but I've generally used quality media too. I'll have to give some of the older or exotic discs a checkup, though, to make sure.

G

[AqLumen]

Just want to comment that about 7 years ago I burned some audio CDs with TY-made TDK discs, and these discs still read and play back fine.

The article does have me thinking about the archival length of optical media but certainly not tape as an alternative. Tape storage also has its own set of problems (magnetic "drift," heat, moisture, etc.) and its longevity as a technology is really questionable. For years I worked as a computer operator and unless I was quite careful about tape storage, there would be data loss. I had nightmares using Colorado & Conner tape drivers on my PC. Usenet is filled with horror stories of how many people lost data with these drives.

Has anyone tried these:

http://www.shop4tech.com/user.htm?go=vi ... ta=91_r158

While the article mentions CDR longevity, what about long-term storage on DVD?