The Myth Of The 100-Year CD-Rom

Toshito writes "Are we putting too much faith in the ubiquitous "recordable CD", or CD-R? A lot of manufacturer claims 100 years of shelf life for a CD-R. But in real life, it can be much less. Expect failure after only 5 years... Personnaly I just discovered 6 audio cassettes with the voice of my late grandfather, talking about old times. These tapes are copies of reel to reel recorded in 1971, and they are still in excellent shape. I was thinking about digitizing everything, do a little noise reduction, and burning this on CD's, for my childrens and great grand-childrens enjoyment, but it seems that old analog tech from the '70 is more reliable than digital. The full story at Rense. Other links about the subject: Practical PC, Mscience, and an excellent reasearch by the Library of Congress (warning! PDF): Study of CD longevity, html version (google):Study html."

Comments

omg

[Der Krazy Kraut]

omg jin wicked on teh spoke!!!!!!!1111111~~~

Re:CD Rot

[wondafucka]

Another strategy is instead of paying the neighbor kid to mow your lawn, pay him to do data archival. $5/10 an hour is a pretty sweet deal to a 14 year old, especially when they can listen to music and or watch movies while they do it. Once every 5 to 10 years should do the trick (or a steady maintainance routine). Hopefully my great great grandchildren are going to inherit my music/media collection.