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Burned CDs Last 5 years Max -- Use Tape?
Lam1969 writes "Computerworld has interviewed Kurt Gerecke, an IBM storage expert and physicist who claims burned CDs only have a two to five-year lifespan, depending on the quality of the CD. From the article: "The problem is material degradation. Optical discs commonly used for burning, such as CD-R and CD-RW, have a recording surface consisting of a layer of dye that can be modified by heat to store data. The degradation process can result in the data 'shifting' on the surface and thus becoming unreadable to the laser beam." Gerecke recommends magnetic tapes to store pictures, videos and songs."
Magnetic tape? Ok
Anyone know where I can download an MP3 jukebox for my Vic 20?
Those are records. I don't know about you, but I don't have an LP-ROM drive.
I've known about this for years...that's why I store all my important data exclusively on punch cards. Nothing will degrade my precious bales and bales of punch cards! My data will outlast the Apocalypse!
See, look at all these wonderful punched cards....they'll last fore...waitaminit...where did all these silverfish come from???
NNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
I've had the problem of a few of my burned CDs flaking off the reflective surface. I tried slicing it off of another CD-R, but to no avail.
It's like sex, except I'm having it!
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
I've had burned CDs die very quickly as well though. Therefore the only solution is to upload your music onto P2P netwroks to save the back up copy fair use entitles you to.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
The concern I have is whether I had a working drive to read the tapes with in 40 years.. Oh, nevermind, I'm 60 now, so that probably won't be a problem for me personally..
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
Yeah, except that seek time would really suck -- no matter how quickly you could pick up and move the tonearm.
The article says to use magnetic tape because the CDs degrade.
So does tape. Unless you're the BOfH, in which case you have a tape safe. But you can't use that to store tapes - its not climate controlled, and you've got too many bodies hidden in it anyway ... but ever tried to read a 10-year-od tape on a new machine? I gave up - it was easier to connect to a serial port and just dump the whole database over the course of a week, its that bad. Then another day for updates. Todays USB and Firewire will be the next generation's serial ports.
So, use a hard drive?
Leave it sitting on a shelf too long and you get "stiction" - so that's no good either. And have you even TRIED to access a 10-year-old drive in todays machines? The bois tries to auto-config, and the machine won't boot.
Zip disks? Hahahah click of death hahahah (I've got several zip drives that are "unzipped")
Paper printouts? Well, those are good for a few decades, but not exactly portable ... anyone care to figure out how many acres of trees a hex dump of a 200-gig drive will take?
Nope, stone tablets - to hit anyone over the head with who thinks that there's any real long-term solution other than to just re-copy to the latest format and pray.
What does the drive have to do with anything?
;-)
A good drive burns clear thru the media making the distinction between a one and zero very clear.
--Phillip
Can you say BIRTH TAX
Umm, the tape backup consortium?
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: That averages about 660,000,000 of each kind.
Sorry, you just reminded me of the History of Life Part I, where Moses comes out with the Fifteen Commandments... Oops, Ten Commandments...
This thread also strikes me as funny because I'm in the middle of archiving about 800 VHS tapes to DVD. Many are 15-20 years old, and I've been surprised at how well most of them still work. I wonder if the DVDs will last as long, but I figure it'll be easier to move the data off them since it won't have to be done in real time.
Besides, it's more of a space issue at this point. Which I'm guessing would be an issue with the stone tablets too!
The revolution will NOT be televised.
That has to be the most pretentious fucking website I have ever seen.
SMALL TEXT NO GRAPHICS LOTS OF RANDOM PARENTHETICAL STATEMENTS USAGE OF FAKE WORDS OMFG I'M SO COOL
"stop. unchain. (chain reaction)"
I only have one thing to say about this. The last line.
+++ATH0
hanging chads?
Lump lingered last in line for brains, and the ones she got were sorta rotten and insane.
Everyone knows that good drives have gold lasers, gold cables, and gold chipsets so the digital signal doesn't degrade.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
I suspect the late 20th century and early 21st century will become a mini-dark ages (at least for personal or family things).
LOL
Get outside of your technology world for a few minutes and look at the HUGE boom in a multi-million dollar trend called "scrap-booking."
Read any good sonnets lately?
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Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I don't know about you guys, but my data always feels "warmer" when I read it from an LP-ROM. I can't explain it any better than that, you can just FEEL it, man! CDs are cold and digital, there's no love there.. Look, all I'm saying is that when I'm in the mood for some soulful gaming I bust out my copy of Quake4 on vinyl, none of this crap you'll find on CD (or worse, DVD) feels RIGHT, MAN!! VINYL FOREVER!!11 DEATH TO THE OPTICAL OPPRESSORS!!1111
"Bother," said Pooh, as lightning knocked out hi%#&(F*@NO CARRIER
Great - so how am I supposed to even load those monstrosities into my thumbchip 'puter in 30 years? p Especially since all optical lasers will have been banned as potention "terr'rist weapons" under the laws passed by Emporer Bush the First in 2016?