Community Newsletter: Q&A: 1/27/06 How long do burned CD-Rs and CD-RWs last?
- 1/26/06 5:55 PM
Depends...
by dhowes_999 - 1/27/06 8:43 AM In reply to: CDs are not forever - what about HDs? by sauna6I've know of old 386 hard drives that are still in business and brand new drives that are dead.
I suspect that newer drives are never likely to last as long as the older drives, due to the following reasons:
1. Newer drives have much faster spindle speeds, stressing the metal components more.
2. Newer drives typicaly have more moving parts, more heads, more platters etc than older drives.
3. Most new drives tend to generate a lot more heat than older drives.
The factors above are mitigated somewhat by improvements in technology over the years, but for the most part its still the same basic technology.
The biggest killer of hard drives without a doubt is heat.
The 386 ran pretty cool and generally didn't have its cases packed with other components generating a lot of heat, such as high-end graphics cards.
A modern PC in contrast can be a hostile environment even if you do have a ton of fans buzzing away.
The best things you can do to safeguard data on a hard disk are:
1. Pick a good brand Seagate, Western Digital etc.
( Not maxtor ), the Hitachi Deskstar (formerly the IBM Deskstar) has a fantastic reputation for speed although there have also been a number of reported cases of some models dying ( I've had one die on me ).
2. Do everything you can to protect it from extreams.
In the case of an internal drive ensure your PC has good airflow inside the case and consider fitting a hard drive cooler.
In the case of an external drive, keep it out of direct sunlight and again make sure there is suitable ventilation.
3. Monitor the health of your hard disk. There a number of tools that will let you do this, the best is probably http://www.hddlife.com/
whats wrong with maxtor??
by CathodeRayTube - 1/28/06 10:36 PM In reply to: Depends... by dhowes_999all my drives are maxtors....i think they work well but the oldest one is only about a year old...
what gos wrong with maxtors? are they made not as well or what? i have ALL the music i ever owned on the 300gig drive...and i want to keep it my entire life...can the maxtors be trusted and will they last ??
or should i back it up befor anything happens...
i allways thought maxtor was good...but do they have a bad reputation?
maxtor is reliable to a point
by mudogg11 - 1/29/06 12:13 PM In reply to: whats wrong with maxtor?? by CathodeRayTubei have run maxtor hard drives for as long as i had a computer (since 1995) & had no real problems. but as always you should back up your drives just in case....
Archival Gold--how long will they last?
by jcote859 - 1/27/06 4:33 AM In reply to: 1/27/06 How long do burned CD-Rs and CD-RWs last? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
This is such an interesting topic. I bought (for a lot more money --I might add) eFilm Archival Gold disks for my picture backups. It is stated that they are to last 300 years. How long will they last?
Excellent article!
by jhinkson - 1/27/06 4:40 AM In reply to: 1/27/06 How long do burned CD-Rs and CD-RWs last? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Having done no research myself, I assumed that home-recorded CDs will last as long as the commercial kind. This article was an eye opener! Thank you very much.
Jim Hinkson
El Sobrante, CA
How long do burned CD-Rs and CD-RWs last?
by FJVVVVV - 1/27/06 5:26 AM In reply to: 1/27/06 How long do burned CD-Rs and CD-RWs last? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
How about probably the biggest factor. CD-r that are burned with music and left in hot cars in the summertime? I have a number of music cd-r's that are slowly dying. It seems the advise about burning to 80-90% capacity might be advisable also, since the cd's play fine until the last few tracks. The cd's that fail sound like poor fm reception with static and sometimes stuttering.
Frank V.
Labeling
by Romas27 - 1/27/06 5:27 AM In reply to: 1/27/06 How long do burned CD-Rs and CD-RWs last? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Barry,
You got it all correct; but I differ with the labeling comments. This is where quality becomes important. As you described the front side is plastic, then comes the dye followed by the reflective film then a layer of laquer (or similar) which is the label side. If the label side is just a thin laquer coating keeping the reflective film in place you can have a problem.
I had some inexpensive CD's that literally peeled upon minor flexing or light scratching. Because of that I actually destroyed numerous manufacturers CD's to see if there were differences. Yep, name brands hold up quite well. Anyway back to labeling. There are numerous CD's available that have an extra coating on them (some appear to be a silkscreened white mattes surface) so that you can write or print on them. This exrea caoting is more than enough protection from inks in you r marking pen or printer. The volatile solvents "carrying" the pigment are what can dissolve the laquer layer and potentially allow oxidation of the reflective film. Once the solvent has evaporated the ink pigments (or dyes) will be essentially stable.Water based inks would be the safest to use, but then the inks won't be as long-lasting and may fade away.
Stick on labels could potentially be a problem depending on the adhesive being used. But I doubt it. If anything the label would add a layer of protection to the laquer side.
Remeber the CD "dyes" are covered by the reflective film then the "laquer". The film has to be compromised to affect the dye.
Need to Label those CD-Rs
by edge_bit - 1/27/06 6:27 AM In reply to: 1/27/06 How long do burned CD-Rs and CD-RWs last? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Personally, I knew about the dye in permanent inks seeping through the label to the data a long, long time ago.
I don't care...
I take care to keep a fresh copy of anything truly critical in more than one place.
Anything else I consider disposable. My favourite music, my family photos, etc... I update them every once in a while onto new media, but nothing is truly permanent as a storage solution.
If I lose all of this personal data I will likely be sad, but not beaten. I'll simply collect again and hope that the storage system in my brain doesn't fall victim to Alzheimer's disease.
Cheers
Labelling recordable media
by RusselB - 1/27/06 4:21 PM In reply to: Need to Label those CD-Rs by edge_bitWhat I do, and with great success (so far) is to buy the little labels that you would use on a file folder, write on the label, the put the label on the CD case, and ensure that the CD that came out of case 1, goes into case 1 when not needed. This way the cases are labeled rather than the media itself.
Organizing your discs.
by DrNicket - 1/30/06 3:56 PM In reply to: Labelling recordable media by RusselBQuote: ''What I do, and with great success (so far) is to buy the little labels that you would use on a file folder, write on the label, the put the label on the CD case, and ensure that the CD that came out of case 1, goes into case 1 when not needed. This way the cases are labeled rather than the media itself.''
What you can do to further protect your sanity (should a mixup occur) Is to mark the discs like Barry said, using the internal hub section, and use a numeric or alphanumeric key to match the disc to the case. If you want to take it a step further, create a spreadsheet (and print it) or paper list of disc #s and contents (should anything happen to the case).
For professionals and the extra-cautious (like me) this may be a better way to go.
We were all dupped
by arkster - 1/27/06 6:33 AM In reply to: 1/27/06 How long do burned CD-Rs and CD-RWs last? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
We were all led to belive that recordable media will last for 50 yrs.
Yes, physically, but the data on them?
These companies producing CD-r's should be sued.
We must start a class action against these companies.
When I originally recorded my photos about 5yrs ago, the data looked fine, for about a year or two, but then I could not read from some of them.
Since then I changed my recorders for newer, faster, DVD-CDR-W, Double-sided and Lightscribe capable.
How can I be sure that these recordings will last?
When we were sold on CD-R recorders, we were told that magnetic tape will loose the data within 10-to-20yrs, but the CD-R's will last forever.
Now we are told that the best tmedia to preserve digital recordings is tape again?
So, where is the truth?
I'm totally desgusted about this whole issue.
Readability problem twist
by easytimes455 - 1/27/06 6:34 AM In reply to: 1/27/06 How long do burned CD-Rs and CD-RWs last? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I have had some problems with burned disks, but not very many. By far, my most frustrating one is the least problematic. I create video DVDs on my Windows 2000 computer, from my Sony Digital8 camcorder and then make many copies for our family members. They like seeing our grandkids progress.
Several of the DVDs will not be readable on the burner drive, where they were created... a Plextor PX708UF. I put the same unreadable DVD on my Mac Powerbook with 4x Superdrive, and it plays the movie perfectly. I can also play it on my Sony DVD player in the living room. But the Windows/Plextor won't even see the DVD until I play it substantially through in purely play mode on another machine. Then the Windows machine will see it.
I can make a copy of the unreadable disk on my Mac, and the copy appears and plays on my Windows 2000 computer, from where the copy originated... grrr. But as I say above, after playing almost all the way through, the original DVD is suddenly readable, on the Windows computer in some cases. I can also make a copy of it, then. Frustrating!
This problem also applies to some of my data backup DVDs.
I'm wondering if the reader laser is somehow altering the dye on the disk enough to make it readable on the Win computer? I burn DVDs on the Win computer with Nero 6 Ultra, in most cases. Never had a problem with the Mac burning DVDs, when I use the iMovie/iDVD combo.
I have not had good luck with DVD+R's, most especially with video, and to a lesser degree with data. So I use only Maxell DVD-R for most of my burning, as well as any reputable brand name CD-R for music disks. I never use RW media for anything.
Anyone have a suggestion?
nothing lasts forever
by krazyken44 - 1/27/06 6:41 AM In reply to: 1/27/06 How long do burned CD-Rs and CD-RWs last? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Still this was a great question and answer.
I have some old 5.25 floppys I can still read and write the data from and I have some 1yr 1.44 floppies that are junk and brand new. Old hard disk are the same thing I have a DOS PC(386) it's drives are running and I can read/write to them fine, but the CD drive is dead. I've had new hard drives fail out of the box or within 6 mos.
Even the USB storage drives die or become unreadable, so there no such thing as a perfect long lasting media for any purpose, so that why a good 2 or 3 media types backup to plan is the was to go.
There is this disk...
by alont - 1/27/06 6:50 AM In reply to: 1/27/06 How long do burned CD-Rs and CD-RWs last? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
a recordable disk made of GOLD (no really) its creators say it can last up to 100 years (WOW) and its about 10 bucks i think (or was it 100??)
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