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."

Comments

Instead of tape why not drives for long term?

[portwojc]

Isn't the cost point close enough yet to just use hard drives instead for long term storage and not be too bad?

You can pick up OEM 250GB hard drives for around $100. Toss in a $50 USB case or a SATA case and you're looking at $1.67 a GB storage. Plus you're not limited to 4.5GB file size.

Sure drives fail but you won't be spinning them that often. I'm begining to think it may be worth it for the long term. Then use the USB drive or SATA as needed and if need be burn a disk.

Or my money back?

[winkydink]

Great. I lose hundreds of precious photos. They give me a buck.