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To comply with copyright legislation in various countries, Digital Audio Home Recorders will only make recordings on CD-R and CD-RW discs bearing the appropriate 'audio' logo. These discs are subject to levies which are payable to the relevant copyright protection associations.

-- http://www.mam-a.com/audio_technical

One can use a computer or other device to copy an audio CD onto a data CD/R, but to do so legally, you must use the special Audio CD/R media.

There are Archive quality DVDs....

TDK states their metal-stabilized Cyanine is also stable for 70 years.

Mitsubishi went in a different direction and produced what is called a Metal Azo dye, that they claim is stable for around 100 years.

Then there is Matsui?
http://www.mam-a.com/
New Lifetime Test results:
Expected Lifetime:
MAM-A Gold Archive CD-R: 329 years
MAM-A Gold Archive DVD-R: 116 years

Duplicated the data on 5+ disks (like in a RAID structure - maybe even RAID 10 if cost is no object). Supply the whole system to read the data and then have back up hardware in triple redundancy.

The cheaper solution would be to make a bit torrent of it and have various museum's host the entire bit torrent.

Use a writeable archival CD and/or DVD MAM-A Archival disks and/or add a couple different flash devices (USB, CF, SD, etc) formatted with different file systems. As well as the full datasheet for the flash IC(s) contained inside the devices. If the form factors are non-existant, someone could still read the flash device with some kind of future flash reading apparatus. Or at least carve the full part numbers for the memory sticks and ICs into stone so that the exhumer can look up the datasheet using his/her hive-mind-galaxy-web implants.

CD/DVD media degrades over time. Even the gold-based discs. Proper storage and handling is key. I'd go USB...

I've very recently had to consider this
question for a friend who wants to archive
the family genealogy research data, along
with photos and scans of newspapers, etc.
Their design goal was 100+ years and
maximum possible compatibility.

Use the best possible media. The problems
with optical disks are:

  - dyes fade
  - material of disk itself decays
  - reflective layer oxidizes
  - reflective layer too easily scratched

Check this media out:

    http://www.mam-a.com/

Use the "Gold" version of anything they have.
Also, single layer DVD+R is the best format
for longevity at this time, except for CDs,
which are way too small for you. The website
goes into details about why. (Hurry up HD
formats!)

After getting the best possible media, it's
storage: dark, cool, dry place. Regular consumer
CDs/DVD+Rs might do pretty good stored in a
light tight box with some desiccant packets in a
cool place.

Finally - the obvious: don't scratch!

If you use good quality media with gold stabilized dye the shelf life should be 100 years or more.

http://www.mam-a.com/products/dvd/Gold%20DVD/DVDR%20Gold.htm

Of course if you use the crap you get in most stores you are looking at 1 year.

http://www.mam-a.com/products/gold/index.html

Buy archive quality discs that have quality reflective layers, anti-scratch coatings on the top and dyes that are more stable than the generic recordables you find in a big box store. Install window blinds and/or curtains and always leave them closed.

I converted my company from using normal CD-R to the gold archive type (http://www.mam-a.com/products/gold/archive.html) for the master copies of our software releases about a year ago. So far we have not had a problem reading data from any of these CDs. I've been getting these from here http://www.datamediastore.com/goarqucd.html (Even though they are a "yahoo" store)

Use CD/DVD media that has a high quality dye and your data will last longer. I use Mitsui CDRs for data that I want to last a while. They use high quality dye and thier optical media products are among if not the best in the industry. http://www.mam-a.com/

High quality media along with proper storage will help your data last longer. As to what the ultimate in long term data storage is, I have no idea. Pressed CDs maybe? I suppose magnetic tape as TFA says isn't that bad but it has its issues too.

Check it: http://mam-a.com/products/gold/archive.html

They claim "storage life in excess of 300 years".

Granted, claims like that are easy to make. . . Still, there's a huge difference between 5 years and 300 years. Who is closer to being right?

Where does one find Gold discs these days? Just search the web for "Gold archival CD-R" and you'll find plenty of sources.

Anything wrong with these, or these?

the foil inside would actually rust over time.

Actually, I've never known Silver, Gold or Aluminum to rust...

The "flaking problem" is / was quite common with poorly manufactured CDRs. (The OLD cdrecordable.com's discs were notorious for this) IMHO, Always look for the big three (If you do any "tape-trading" you will start to see a trend of what people will and wont accept): Mitsui, Taiyo Yuden and Kodak. Stay away from CMC Magnetics for your archival stuff (Seems to be about every brand out there). CMC has improved over the years, but they are still at the bottom of the scale.

Get yourself an ATIP reader (Windows version "cdrecord -atip" for linux) and you will be able to tell your cheap CDRs from the good ones. For instance, Fuji brand (not FujiFilm) with the spin-on top-holder are Taiyo Yudens ;)

Hope that's useful to someone.

-FB

I am using MAM-A (Mitsui) Gold archival quality CD's, and I make 2 copies. They are supposed to be good for at least 100 years.

Every time there is a study on CD-R storage stability these test way better than all the others.

MAM-A

Sorry for taking so long to respond, I would have done so earlier if only the damn network admins at the CCC congress had fixed the damned wireless LAN... ;)

First off, I readily admit that I am not an expert on CD media lifetimes. It's not something I dealt with in any detail, so my knowledge is limited to what I read by chance and what any computer user might pick up. This might serve to explain the inaccuracies and ambiguity you find in my posts. I think I do know that CDs are more reliable than floppy disks, and what I've read so far generally supports that.

So, anyway, without further ado: http://www.mam-a.com/technology/quality/longevity. htm

F-117a fit on a single floppy and that was a military flight simulator game with at least two dozen missions and terrains from all over the world.

Okay, so current software in general and games in particular are bloated, whatever. I really want to get off the that trail here - it really hasn't got any relation to the issue I originally talked about, which is the fact (or if you will, opinion) that CDs are a more reliable medium than floppy disks, or, even more specifically, that CDs have a longer shelf lifetime than floppies.

This is really annoying because I'd like to have the extra safety factor of gold media for archiving purposes.

See: Mitsui-MAM Product List

Switching to DVD-RAM may be an option but the risk factor there is the possibility of not having a drive handy that can read the disks 10 years later.

Good idea. Not being a chemical expert, I visited an industry leader to gain a chemical enginnering degree and learn about the latest in organic dye technology. E2 taught me Quantum mechanics so another prevention method is now obvious.

Take a burned disk and a blank one and rub the 2 together. Rub vigerously, we need to entagle a good number of them 'purty quantums. Now re-burn the same stuff onto the blank disc as the written one. Easy eh?

Try to ensure you use the same image and burner otherwise you'll get a ghosting effect of the data and you'll have to re-orientate your antenna.

Check the press release here.

As I've said in previous comments, this is pretty much the best media out there, along with Verbatim (Data Life), TDK and Taiyo Yuden.