Life of CD-R media.

Wow the second link is awesome. The software tells you everything about your CD-R…try it out.

I always use MAM (formerly Mitsui) which uses a Pthalocyanine dye. The inherent stability of Mitsui’s patented Phthalocyanine dye means that MAM-A Archive discs last longer than conventional CD-R media.

Read more at:

<http://www.mitsuicdr.com/>

Peace,
Tony

So acd from MAM-A is a MAMA-Gram?

I got a "You got a problem with downloading, bub" message, along with a long dissertation on what went wrong trying for the cd identifier. What a bunch of jerks! Hey! Expensive bandwidth isn’t my problem!

Bah! Humbug! (I was waiting all day to say that!) 🙂

YrbkMgr- I will try to locate it in Europe. SO far no success. Don’t big name companies like Sony, TDK etc make similar discs. As they might be easier to get around here.

<http://cdmediaworld.com/hardware/cdrom/cd_quality.shtml>

MAM Private labels for a lot of folks. I buy unbranded discs and they’re cheap. TDK and Sony make respectable discs, just make sure it’s Pthalo, not azo dye. You’ll find MAM at places that sell bulk discs in spindles of 100, although you can buy smaller quantities. Point is, not usually retail stores, but more supplier type stores like CDW, etc.

Taiyo Yuden is a major respected brand, but again, I prefer MAM.

Peace,
Tony

I bought my first recorder about ten years ago and I still have the first CD’s I recorded with it and they still read just fine.

The most important thing no matter what brand or composition is storage. Try to store your disks in a place where the temperature stays relatively constant. Keep them closed out of direct sunlight, or any light if possible. I have seen CD’s, even pressed retail software, that have faded from being left near a window.

Backups should be converted to new media every few years to be safe anyway. CD’s are a little different because they have lasted so long. They held 6 times what a zip disk did for 1/10th the price. Most of us have migrated from 5.25" Disks -> 3.5" Disks -> Syquest\Zip\Jaz -> CD’s and now DVD’s Most of the migrations were to consolidate data to fewer Disks, less expensive media and increased reliability. Now that DVD’s are less expensive they are next in line but fewer people are converting backups because the CD’s can still be read and written to using a DVD recorder. With all other media transitions the new device was not able to read or write to the previous media.

Well I have rambled long enough. Just be careful, keep important files backed up in a safe place and in more than one location.

I don’t think the dye matters that much in the grand scheme of things. I think what is more important is how well the burned did its job. If the burner can’t adapt to the changes in the media as it writes and just assumes that the entire media (writing area) is the same you are going to have a problem. The media writing area isn’t the same, the dye layer varies. Some areas of thicker than others, etc.

This is why I only buy and use Plextor drives. The analyze the media as they write and adjust the laser accordingly. So far I have not had a bad disc or a disc go bad and that is with me using the cheapest media I can find. In fact I won’t pay more than $0.20 per disc for a CD-R.

I also don’t use CD-RW as they are only good for so many writes before they break down and since they didn’t bother to build in tracking of the media layer so that you know when it is about to go bad it isn’t worth the risk to use CD-RW.

Just my 2 cents.

Robert