RE: [AV Media Matters] Analogue vs digital tape stock

[Joseph Wrobel <joseph.wrobel@kodak.com>]

From: Joseph J. Wrobel

As someone who has spent a considerable amount of time evaluating the
long-term keeping characteristics of CD-R media, let me say this:

1)  Several years ago, Kodak ran as rigorous and complete a study on the
lifetime of their CD-R media as anyone could propose.  A summary of this
study can be found at the following location:
http://www.cd-info.com/CDIC/Technology/CD-R/Media/Kodak.html.
The conclusion was that with 95% confidence 95% of our media would last
over 200 years under standard keeping conditions.  Now some people make fun
of the numbers, after all who expects CD-ROM players to be around 200 years
from now, but no one has ever challenged them.

2)  Not all CD-R media is created equal.  Some folks don't care about
stability; they care only about cost.  They are in the majority, and the
CD-R industry appears more than happy to compete for their business.  So if
you want a media that lasts a long time, you have to be selective.  My
recommendation: Kodak Gold Ultima.  Am I biased, probably.  Do I have the
data to back it up, absolutely.

3)  Please direct me to the reports and data on long-term keeping of
removable hard drives and digital tape.  Anecdotes ("I had this disk/tape
that lasted ten years.") don't count.

I have participated in the work of an ANSI/AES Joint Technical Commission
for several years.  One of the goals of the JTC is to write standards for
methods to estimate lifetime of  storage media, both optical and magnetic.
The optical group has generated two standards for CD, one for CD-ROM and
one for CD-R.  The magnetic group has been unable even to come up with a
method for determining the lifetime of tape and has now pretty much
abandoned the effort.

4)  There are numerous pundits in the archivist community who seem to enjoy
confusing folks on the issue of CD-R lifetime.  They quote authors who
suggest the lifetime of available media as anywhere from 3 to 300 years and
emphasize the lower limit as if it applies to all media.  They ignore the
fact that there are media that meet that upper limit as well.  As I said
before, be choosy.  There are data to help you make your choice.

5)  Having said all that, clearly CD-R is not the answer for everyone.  But
recent studies of the CD-R market indicate approximately 40% of the CD-R
media being sold is being used for data storage and backup by businesses
and individuals.  That means this year over a billion CD-R discs are
meeting that need for somebody.  And all indications are that next year,
there'll be more.

jeffkreines@mindspring.com on 12/20/2000 07:32:56 PM

Please respond to AV-Media-Matters@topica.com

To:   AV Media Matters <AV-Media-Matters@topica.com>
cc:    (bcc: Joseph J. Wrobel/595090/EKC)
Subject:  RE: [AV Media Matters] Analogue vs digital tape stock

Joseph Wrobel wrote:

>Media is about a buck a
>disc.  No hassles with playback compatibility.

But what about reliability for long-term storage?  CD-Rs are not well
known for their long-term keeping attributes.