Re: [ARSCLIST] Recommended CD-R's (and risks associated with their use)

[Jim Baldwin <jimbo@xxxxxxxx>]

Gee, so what you're saying is that choice of any media is totally
a crapshoot. Just what I felt from the get-go.

You pays your money and takes your chances goes the old saw.

Jim
=======================================================
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tommy Sjöberg" <tommy.sjoberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, October 23, 2006 2:35 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Recommended CD-R's (and risks associated with their
use)


> Sorry for re-iterating, but if you've read the
> UNESCO paper several postings have already
> pointed to:
>
> "Risks Associated with the Use of Recordable CDs
> and DVDs as Reliable Storage Media in Archival
> Collections - Strategies and Alternatives", by
> Kevin Bradley (can be downloaded from
> http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en, search for the
> title)
>
> you would realise that there is no good CD-R's
> without a good CD-R burner. And contrary to
> disks, burners don't have any standards to comply
> with as long as they burn disks. To establish
> some sort of baseline for burners , they have to
> be individually calibrated against a known
> entity, and such known entities cost a lot of
> money. Burned disks also need to be measured for
> error levels, since a low level from the start
> means a longer life expectancy.
>
> Hence, to summarise the paper - if you can't
> afford to have your burner calibrated, you can't
> afford long term storage on optical disks (access
> copies is a whole different matter).
>
> Tommy Sjöberg
> Centre for Swedish Folk Music and Jazz Research
> Stockholm, Sweden
>
>
>
> >Among archivists (whose main concern is
> >long-term survivability), Mitisui (MAM-A) Gold
> >CDs are generally preferred, if not standard.
> >They're usually used as a back-up to a hard
> >drive system, and best practice dictates to
> >store them something like 50 miles away from the
> >hard drive.  I recently bought a ton, and I
> >found that (a) prices vary a lot, so shop
> >around, both among 'archival' supply companies
> >and audio suppliers; and (b) it pays to buy
> >un-boxed, and purchase jewel cases separately
> >(incidentally, full-size jewel cases are also
> >often preferred for long-term storage; stay away
> >from the slim cases, and most sleeves).
> >
> >And, as people have said, nix on the paper
> >labels if your major concern is longevity.
> >
> >Cheers!
> >
> >Christie Peterson
>
>
>