This taken from the PCworld article linked below:
| |
|"Many of the cheap burnable CDs available at discount stores have a life |
|span of around two years," Gerecke says. "Some of the better-quality discs|
|offer a longer life span, of a maximum of five years." |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|
A lot of misinformation exists about CD-Rs. I guess saying that your discs will fail in 2 to 5 years makes good press, as does saying they will last hundreds of years.
The truth is that CD-R discs can fail in a 2 to 5 year lifetime, if: -very poor quality cheap brands are used -metal reflective layer is not gold -phthalocyanine dye is not used -recorded with a high error rate initially (because of recording speed too high or poor disc-burner compatibility) -poor storage conditions -poor handling -an unexpected disaster (fire,etc.)
However, if you follow all or at least some of the proper recommendations, longevity of CD-Rs will be quite high and will outlast the life of the technology.
Audio CDs have been around since 1982 and CD-Rs since 1990. That means these information carriers are going on 24 and 16 years respectively without catastrophic loss of information. We know a lot more about these materials now, that we did a few years ago and there is no reason why good longevity is not attainable.
One final note, the argument that "So what if media lasts 100 years, you
won't have the equipment to read it at that time." is a poor one. First of
all, no one knows for sure what can or cannot be done in 100 years. I would
think that technology would be quite far advanced and therefore, I wouldn't
rule out the fact that CDs could be read in the future. However, the most
important point is that media life should not be the reason why information
is lost. It should not be the weak link in the system. It should outlast
the technology to read it. Then all you need to worry about is technology
life. Therefore, you should choose media that has the greatest lifetime,
even though 100 years may seem outrageous, to ensure this is the case.
Joe Iraci Canadian Conservation Institute
--------------
Triplets.... Disc, HD, Tape...
Rotating media within 5 years... I know... do we really need to do this.
There are two types of people. The one's who has experienced HD failure,
and
the ones that will.
I think this goes for all storage media. Any one that claims that they are
willing to trust a disc for 100+ years I would like to talk to in 20 years.
Interesting article today on MSN:
http://msn.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,124312,00.asp?GT1=7645
have a happy storage day...
Claus
Claus Trelby Managing Engineer/Partner
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