Checked Your CD-Rs Lately?

[radhak]

The widely asked but rarely answered with scientific metrics : how long will a CD backup last?

It's still just one person's backup, but he seems to have tagged, numbered and dated his backups from 2000, so it has value for me. Anything 4 to 10% corrupted is not good for critical data.

But I have a theory : for the average joe, data backed-up onto disks more than 3 years ago does not have any value. Yes, maybe archived data for tax audits and all, but other than that, all the data I want to hold onto very dearly, is on my hard-disk now (and it's backups). I am talking pictures, personal info, etc. Even all my tax info, I've never had to delete from my HDD - that's because of the falling cost of disk storage. Each successive hard drive has been many times cheaper and many times larger! And I have become more diligent with my HDD backups.

So what do you think - if you lose your earliest (oldest) backups on CD/DVD, will you lose much?

[cgallery]

We get lots of customers bringing every conceivable brand of machine into the shop and telling us it won't burn disks reliably. We typically find that they are using Memorex or some store brand of blank, and once they switch to a high-quality blank from one of the Japanese outfits (Verbatim is Mitsubishi Chemical, Maxell is good, TDK is Imation but still very good), their problems clear-up.

I've never been particularly fond of some brands of burners, either.

So use a never heard of before burner with Memorex disks, and I wouldn't be surprised if you can't read it the following month.

Give me a NEC burner and some Verbatim disks, and I'm good to go.

I have disks that are approaching 15 years old and they work fine. These were typically burned on an HP burner (can't remember OEM) and HP media (again, OEM unknown).

[MilDoc]

Hmmm ... my burners have always been NEC or Samsung since the start, and TDK or Verbatim disks. But I have had a few go bad in 10-12 years.

Now, if important stuff, I copy it every 5 years. Cheap insurance given the price of disks.

And for the really important stuff I use DVD-RAM - same thing libraries etc use.

[jussi]

We get lots of customers bringing every conceivable brand of machine into the shop and telling us it won't burn disks reliably. We typically find that they are using Memorex or some store brand of blank, and once they switch to a high-quality blank from one of the Japanese outfits (Verbatim is Mitsubishi Chemical, Maxell is good, TDK is Imation but still very good), their problems clear-up.

I've never been particularly fond of some brands of burners, either.

So use a never heard of before burner with Memorex disks, and I wouldn't be surprised if you can't read it the following month.

Give me a NEC burner and some Verbatim disks, and I'm good to go.

I have disks that are approaching 15 years old and they work fine. These were typically burned on an HP burner (can't remember OEM) and HP media (again, OEM unknown).

Is Taiyo Yuden still considered the best?

[crokett]

All my really important stuff is also on at least two of a couple HDDs or a USB memory stick. I don't really have any data backed up to CDROM, except whatever pictures were put there by whatever store developed the film. Anything over a year or two old I consider obsolete anyway.

[cgallery]

Is Taiyo Yuden still considered the best?

I think the problem w/ the TY have been the counterfeit disks. Unless you can get them from a trusted source, I think I'd rather use Verbatim.

[jziegler]

I think the problem w/ the TY have been the counterfeit disks. Unless you can get them from a trusted source, I think I'd rather use Verbatim.

Which is why I order them from Newegg. They have quite a few varieties, including the inkjet printable that I buy (since I have the printer that prints them, and my wife teaches voice lessons, so we sometimes do recordings of students, etc). They are an easy source of the real deal, and at reasonable prices too (around $30 for a spindle of 100)

The problem with so many of the "name brands" is that since they don't make the CDr media themselves, their sources can change from batch to batch.

Another thing to watch out for is the adhesive labels (neato and the like). AVOID THEM!!!!!!! My non-scientific experience (from my wife mostly) is that they have a near 100% failure rate for audio CDs within 5 years.

Jim

[cgallery]

The problem with so many of the "name brands" is that since they don't make the CDr media themselves, their sources can change from batch to batch.

That's a good point. Further complicating matters is the fact that production of these products is moving to China. So far I've had good luck, but only time will tell if they last as long as disks manufactured in Japan.

Unless the Japanese have 24/7 staff on hand at the factories (they well might), I'd be concerned about longevity of any Chinese disks.