On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 20:22:51 -0500, "Scruff" wrote:
And what you are doing is carefully replying to Stephan’s post whilst ignoring all the links I gave you showing you to be extremely optimistic as to CD durability.
Hmm, I guess I could say you are doing the same, unless you’ve read my links also.
Yes, read your link.
We all know nothing lasts forever, and all cd’s have to do is last long enough to make it to the next big thing in data storage. Based on my own experience and all of the stuff I googled, cd’s will last a long time. The pics of moldy cd’s that stephan posted are probably in better shape that the hard copy data sitting in the album next to them.
Like anything, you have to take care of them. Having lived in Hawaii myself, some of my family still does, I know that you need to be a little extra careful. I’m not sure stephan has.
His original posts reeked a bit over the top from bad personal experience and a bit of paranoia.
Today’s cd burning capabilities are light years ahead of the first omen cd’s available. And the ones I have, including 15 year old ones from when I worked in computer software are still working fine. I even pulled a few out of the closet to prove it to myself.
I think that anecdotal evidence, such as yours is fine, but you have to remember that the same does not hold true for everyone. CDs are not robust, and no where near as safe as DVDs. Now, if you happen to have written everything to gold disks, stored them in a cupboard and never tried to restore files from them, I accept that most will likely be OK for a reasonable amount of time.
However, the fact is that a lot of the cheapo disks will not last even if you lock them away with a dehumidifier and never open the cupboard. There are far too many WORN (Write Once Read Never) quality disks floating around.
So, when stephan says a couple of years, five max, or whatever, it’s obvious he’s reacting from his bad experiences.
Yes, but also from some of the reports, as I have listed above.
As far as you go, Hecate, go find your oldest cd and try it. Let us know how it works.
I bet it’s just fine.
I have had disks just die on me, which is why they are only ever temporary storage. Everything I had on CD is being moved to DVD or has already been moved to hard disk until I get time to write the DVDs. Plus I always have HDD copies on at least one internal and one external hard disk anyway.
As for those CDs I had – there were approximately 100. 10 were completely dead after varying periods between 1 and 4 years and 6 more had corrupt sectors. If I knew then what I know now I’d never have used CDs as archives.
The disks were virtually all gold/silver disk (not "pure" gold disks, but the next best) from makers like Kodak and were kept in storage.
So I wouldn’t trust them. YMMV.
—
Hecate – The Real One
veni, vidi, reliqui
