Say Goodbye To Your CD-Rs In Two Years?

Little Hamster writes "According to an article on cdfreaks.com, a test done by the Dutch PC-Active magazine showed that among 30 different CD-R brands tested, a lot of them were already unreadable after twenty months. This is shocking, and makes me wonder how should I backup my data, photo and music collection."

Comments

Break out the Brillo

[xigxag]

Although they are of a similar tech, what about DVD recordable disks? I've got plenty of those now...

This would be as good a place as any to mention TDK's Armor Plated DVD Media, which are supposed to keep on working even after having been scoured with steel wool pads. Also, Verbatim makes a line of scratch-resistant CD-R media.

Re:A little history...

[Tteddo]

I used to work in a CD factory (from 1986 to 1994), and this is plain not true. A pressed CD consists of:
disc label
protective coating (laquer)
Aluminum layer (sputtered on)
data layer (pressed into the next layer when injection molded)
polycarbonate injection molded disc
To vary from this is a violation of the Phillips spec, and you are not allowed to put the Compact Disc logo on the resulting product.
What you probably noticed was the laquer layer was thick when we started making discs, but over the years laquer has improved to the point that only a very thin layer is needed.
If you leave out the laquer entirely, the aluminum oxidates rapidly, rendering the disc useless.

Slower recording speeds not always better

[fadden]

Does it matter? Yes. Is slower always better? No.

Rather than re-hash this, please see:

Subject: [3-31] Is it better to record at slower speeds?

In the CD-Recordable FAQ.

Quick summary: higher speeds require a different "write strategy" than slower speeds. Different media formulations are optimized for a particular write strategy, so writing slower than the optimal speed can actually produce inferior results.

The choice of media and recording hardware has to be taken into consideration. In any event, this has relatively little to do with disc deterioration. A disc that's better to begin with won't show the effects of physical deterioration as soon, but if the top lacquer coat isn't as close to air-tight as materials allow, it doesn't matter how you write the disc.

100-200 year CD-R blanks are available

[Animats]

Archival quality blanks exist, but they're hard to find and cost more. Some sources:

• MAM-E Gold Ultra, about Eur. 1.15 each.
• Mitsui Gold Ultra, about $1.60 each.

Kodak used to be in this market, but seems to have exited it.

The key here seems to be dye type. Phthalocyanine has slower writing speeds but longer storage life; Cyanine has higher writing speeds but much shorter storage life. The "archival grade" CDs also have gold reflecting layers and a tougher substrate.

There are also "Medical grade" CD-R blanks, but they're essentially the same as the archival ones.

There are programs which will read the ATIP information from a blank, telling you what the manufacturer, max writing speed, and dye type is.

Re:Which CD-R(W) brands are worth getting?

[Read Icculus]

The two main CD-R companies are Ricoh, in Taiwan, and Taiyo Yuden in Japan. Now which company do you suppose makes the better discs? Check the "made in, hecho... etc." label before you buy discs. "Made in Japan" discs are head and shoulders above Ricoh discs. Not only do they have higher standards in Japan, they also use higher-quality dye. After that the main thing to look for is a nice, non peeling top. I recommend Fuji, Mitsui, HP, and Kodak discs if you are looking for a CD-R that will keep your data safe. I've burned thousands of CD-Rs over the last 5+ years, and not a single one of my archive discs have ever "gone bad", or flaked out on me. Those archive discs are mostly TDKs from back when they were made by TY, and Fujis.