life span of cd-r, too short

[dduc]

Do Burned CDs Have a Short Life Span?

Optical discs may not be your best bet for storing digital media long term, expert says.

John Blau, IDG News Service
Tuesday, January 10, 2006

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, has his own 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.

"Unlike pressed original CDs, burned CDs have a relatively short life span of between two to five years, depending on the quality of the CD," Gerecke says. "There are a few things you can do to extend the life of a burned CD, like keeping the disc in a cool, dark space, but not a whole lot more."

The problem is material degradation. Optical discs commonly used for burning, such as CD-R and CD-RW, have a recording surface consisting of a layer of dye that can be modified by heat to store data. The degradation process can result in the data "shifting" on the surface and thus becoming unreadable to the laser beam.

"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."

Distinguishing high-quality burnable CDs from low-quality discs is difficult, he says, because few vendors use life span as a selling point.

Similar Limitations

Hard-drive disks also have their limitations, according to Gerecke. The problem with hard drives, he says, is not so much the disk itself as it is the disk bearing, which has a positioning function similar to a ball bearing. "If the hard drive uses an inexpensive disk bearing, that bearing will wear out faster than a more expensive one," he says. His recommendation: a hard-drive disk with 7200 revolutions per minute.

To overcome the preservation limitations of burnable CDs, Gerecke suggests using magnetic tapes, which, he claims, can have a life span of 30 years to 100 years, depending on their quality. "Even if magnetic tapes are also subject to degradation, they're still the superior storage media," he says.

But he's quick to point out that no storage medium lasts forever and, consequently, consumers and business alike need to have a migration plan to new storage technologies.

"Companies, in particular, need to be constantly looking at new storage technologies and have an archiving strategy that allows them to automatically migrate to new technologies," he says. "Otherwise, they're going to wind up in a dead-end. And for those sitting on terabytes of crucial data, that could be a colossal problem."

link to article (http://msn.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,124312,00.asp?GT1=7645)

I am now worried... -fear

[Knoctur_nal]

2-5 years is quite a long time..but think about it..ppl now transferring their files to dvds...within that 2-5 yrar lifespan...new and better media is being developed...everything has a lifespan...n whas wrong with burning every few years....worried?...i think not....anyways..within the next few year...who knows if cds will still be around....

[DragonLoaded]

blu rays disks!!!!!!!!!!! pioneer launching new blu ray burner rom, i think

heard sum sort of disk suspassing the blu ray that holds lots more than a blu ray.......cant remember wot tho, hvd or sumthing

note blu ray holds bout...... hmmmm.......6 or 8 times more than a dvd, cnt remember wot

can n e bdy confirm on this

[Knoctur_nal]

dvd...hs..i don even have a dvd drive...figure i don need one....portable external drive works for me....gagag

[shinboi]

i have way too much media to just store on HD

[turbogor]

i burnt my starcraft cd 6 years ago :) and it works fine

[Knoctur_nal]

soon sd will be so cheap it will be the next big craze...or something similiar to sd...

[nunubutt]

i dont think its a problem at all, whatever you back up will be out of date in 2-5 years anyways, music is a different matter though.

[Initial.D]

i keep losing mine haha >.<

[Haneo]

Depends mainly on what brand of CD you use in my opinion.

I've used unbranded (blue dye) CD's and they only lasted 2-3 years - CD was in mint condition aswell.

Kodak claims their CD's can last well over 100 years (composed of gold-fortified silver alloy):
http://wwwuk.kodak.com/global/plugins/acrobat/en/service/cdrMedia/lifetime.pdf

I've burn't a Kodak CD 8 years ago and still works well. In fact, it's the best brand I've used.

Other trusted brands are Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden.

[Haneo]

To overcome the preservation limitations of burnable CDs, Gerecke suggests using magnetic tapes, which, he claims, can have a life span of 30 years to 100 years, depending on their quality. "Even if magnetic tapes are also subject to degradation, they're still the superior storage media," he says.

The bad thing about storing on magnetic tape is that data can easily be accidently erased if you place it near a magnetic field, i.e. unshielded speakers. Gotta be very careful.

I think I'll stick with CD's :D .

[Knoctur_nal]

still kicking cds here and a few storage hds

[DragonLoaded]

haha i kicking into dvds, but i guess since they store more i tend to put more stuff in and if it screws up

im screwed -lol

[Haneo]

haha i kicking into dvds, but i guess since they store more i tend to put more stuff in and if it screws up

im screwed -lol

Hehe, true. I create two backups if it's important.
I've finally moved from CD's to DVD's now since they're so cheap and my first DVD-RW (NEC ND-4551) should arrive tomorrow. I can't wait :D

[Knoctur_nal]

i don even have a dvd drive..don need one yet...

[DragonLoaded]

i don even have a dvd drive..don need one yet...

hahaha i bet u soon will need sumthing with greater capacity unless u want mountains of CD-Rs hahahaha

[Knoctur_nal]

ha...i got a ton of cds..n my backups...norton ghost..got images stored on my file server...dvds..pft...

[DragonLoaded]

wow that pretty hardcore, nw u mention that i do hve some bkups on my pen drives and external HD besides my DVDs

i tend to use re-writables more, for sum reason these tend to more error free as sumtimes the DVD-R get errors on the disk when i finish burnin for sum reason -confused

[Haneo]

By the way, which brand of CD/DVD-R/RW's do you's use?

Be nice to know which worked well and which didn't.

The best brands:
- Kodak (very durable), Verbatim, Taiyo Yuden.
- TDK are very good too (had a bad batch once though)

And the worst:
- Imation (really... really bad quality, stay away from them in my opinion)
- Heard from many people Ritek/Ribrand used to be very good, but now they produce very poor quality CD's and DVD's.
- And anything that's unbranded lol

[Knoctur_nal]

cdrs are an extra layer of backup for me...

[DragonLoaded]

By the way, which brand of CD/DVD-R/RW's do you's use?

Be nice to know which worked well and which didn't.

The best brands:
- Kodak (very durable), Verbatim, Taiyo Yuden.
- TDK are very good too (had a bad batch once though)

And the worst:
- Imation (really... really bad quality, stay away from them in my opinion)
- Heard from many people Ritek/Ribrand used to be very good, but now they produce very poor quality CD's and DVD's.
- And anything that's unbranded lol

oooo... nice to no thnxs

im using maxell DVD-R which out of 100, theres a 60% chance its error free

but the most i use is Tescos DVD-RW which i had no problems wiv yet

got sum other 5 brands i brought frm HK hahaha, rly cheap, score!!! -clapclap

and verbatim, DVD+ i newly brought, which i hvent tried

wiv CD-Rs i use TDK and Imation which both i had no problems wiv so far so mainly DVDs that are screwing up <_<

[thebestofme]

dvd-r disc is better than cd-r disc right? -huh

[naruto1314]

dvd-r disc is better than cd-r disc right? -huh
yes it is
is 4.4gb better tahn 700-800mb?

[beta123]

"Unlike pressed original CDs, burned CDs have a relatively short life span of between two to five years, depending on the quality of the CD," Gerecke says. "There are a few things you can do to extend the life of a burned CD, like keeping the disc in a cool, dark space, but not a whole lot more."

The problem is material degradation. Optical discs commonly used for burning, such as CD-R and CD-RW, have a recording surface consisting of a layer of dye that can be modified by heat to store data. The degradation process can result in the data "shifting" on the surface and thus becoming unreadable to the laser beam.

"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."

Distinguishing high-quality burnable CDs from low-quality discs is difficult, he says, because few vendors use life span as a selling point.


definitely, the guy in the article is totally right about it since

- storage environment is important
- material degradation
- layer of dye that can be modified by heat to store data

Distinguishing high-quality burnable CDs from low-quality discs is NOT difficult, the large name brands for example, HP, Ritek (Ridata), Memorex, TDK, etc are the better ones; of course what you pay is what you get...

another way to distinguish is that when you look at the side of your disc, if you see an uneven dried liquid coat, those are the cheaper ones where the manufacturer put the protective coat on to make it last longer...whereas more expensive media (still have that coat) but u CANNOT see the dried liquid mark on the sides of the discs...

my personal experience with cd media is that after 10 years of burned stuff, i store them in a binder, each and every disc are scratchless (not a single scratched mark u could find) n they still plays great...

why pressed CDs have longer life span is that the image is chemically n digitally stored on the shiny surface n then press to the plastic onto the CDR, then a layer is coated from the top to protect the actual CD (therefore you rarely find a CD out there would peel the recording layer off where as is common on CDRs...)

[beta123]

dvd-r disc is better than cd-r disc right? -huh

general answer...duh
precise answer...depending on what you are using it for...

what will be the point if you plan to play the music disc in your car when you only have a CD player n u burn the files onto a DVD?

DVD-5, holds around 4 700 000 000 bytes and that is 4.37 computer GB where 1 kbyte is 1024 bytes* . DVD+R/DVD+RW and DVD-R/DVD-RW supports this format. Also called Single Sided Single Layered. This is the most common DVD Media, often called 4.7 GB Media.

DVD-10, holds around 9 400 000 000 bytes and that is 8.75 computer GB. DVD+R/DVD+RW and DVD-R/DVD-RW supports this format. Also called Double Sided Single Layered.

DVD-9, holds around 8 540 000 000 bytes and that is 7.95 computer GB. DVD+R supports this format. Also called Single Sided Dual Layered. This media is called DVD-R9, DVD-R DL, DVD+R9, DVD+R DL or 8.5 GB Media.

DVD-18, holds around 17 080 000 000 bytes and that is 15.9 computer GB. DVD+R supports this format. Also called Double Sided Dual Layered.