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

CD = Inferior Storage Technology

[Arbogast_II]

The CD is an inferior storage technology that has propagated due to 3 reasons IMO.

1. For the average person, a file is in some way less real if it is on a hard drive, and more real if it is on a CD, where it is a physical object they can touch.
2. Familiarity with CD's due to long term use on music CDs.
3. Vastly superior marketing to hard drives.

Removable hard drive bays should be standard on all PC's. Once you are used to these, the Hard Drive is just a Cartidge to plug into the PC. Data is easily backed up, and a Hard Drive in closet is safe.

Hard drives are faster, take up less space, and are very cost competative with CD's. I am unclear why CD's are popular with the tech savvy crowd. It's an inferior storage technology.

Re:CD = Inferior Storage Technology

[AKnightCowboy]

So please, don't call an HD that is in the same computer, or even the same server rack, your backup. However, a network connected machine on the other side of your building will do just fine.

That's what I tried telling those RIAA bastards but they won't believe me. Putting my CD backups on Kazaa was simply the safest backup investment I could've ever made. Then they came along and labelled me a pirate! A pirate!? I'm just trying to backup my valuable data! Where better than in a distributed format strewn all across the Internet? Even if the entire United States were to blow up I could still retrieve my data from China! Please RIAA, think of the backups.

Re:but something is missing...

[FirstOne]

"But something is missing, The speed in which the CDR is burned sometimes it makes a difference, for the highest reliability I think 1x is the best."

I agree.. Slower recording speeds will usually improve the contrast ratio of the resulting recording.
One can confirm this by making several cd-r's writing at different speeds using the same type of media, and then visually comparing the cd-r's data surfaces, (For recorded areas, Darker is better).

A fair number of CD recording programs DO NOT have a VERIFY cd-r contents option after a burning, and is a major pain in the ass. This problem got me good when I used some 12x Office Depot media for saving some TV show mpegs. Bad move,
I found out months later, that 50% of initial recordings had one or more non recoverable bad spots. :-(

Nero is the only mastering program I know of, which will verify cd-r contents after burning :-),
But it doesn't do it for all recording formats :-( .

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.

Re:but something is missing...

[Spazmania]

Do you remember science class where they told you a measurement wasn't correct unless it included a +/- error estimate?

Every CD burner (like every real-world device) has a certain amount of error. The device decides to turn the laser on or off, and there is a delay before the laser turns on or off. This small delay varies with heat and other factors within the device and varies with the component tolerances from device to device.

This error rate is over time, not distance. So, if the CD is rotating slower, it doesn't move as far during the error period. This results in a burn which is closer to perfect, that is it has less error distance than a higher speed burn.

Then there is the completeness of the burn; with a brand new good quality drive it shouldn't matter, but how many of you have a brand new plextor?

And of course there's also the CD media. If you bought the 10 cent bulk discs and expected them to last, shame on you. I record at slow speed to the old dark-blue verbatims whenever I can, and after 7 years I havn't lost data yet.

Re:Oh no!

[p3d0]

Why does every porn joke get instantly rated "5, Funny"?

Re:Oh no!

[orthogonal]

Why does every porn joke get instantly rated "5, Funny"?

I'd explain, but it takes too long given that I'm typing one-handed.

Re:Oh no!

[Ralph Wiggam]

Here on Slashdot there are many things that divide us, emacs vs. vi, SuSE vs. Debian, the best Dr. Who, all sorts of geeky crap. There is one thing that unites us all- our love of pornography.

-Barry

Cuneiform Tablets

[thales]

Sorry paper rots over time, and there is always danger of a fire. The ultimate backup is cuneiform on clay tablets. They remain readable after thousands of years.

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.