How To Choose Archival CD/DVD Media

An anonymous reader tips us to an article by Patrick McFarland, the well-known Free Software Magazine author, going into great detail on CD/DVD media. McFarland covers the history of these media from CDs through recordable DVDs, explaining the various formats and their strengths and drawbacks. The heart of the article is an essay on the DVD-R vs. DVD+R recording standards, leading to McFarland's recommendation for which media he buys for archival storage. Spoiler: it's Taiyo Yuden DVD+R all the way. From the article: "Unlike pressed CDs/DVDs, 'burnt' CDs/DVDs can eventually 'fade,' due to five things that affect the quality of CD media: sealing method, reflective layer, organic dye makeup, where it was manufactured, and your storage practices (please keep all media out of direct sunlight, in a nice cool dry dark place, in acid-free plastic containers; this will triple the lifetime of any media)."

Comments

Moo

[Chacham]

"Unlike pressed CDs/DVDs, 'burnt' CDs/DVDs can eventually 'fade,' due to five things that affect the quality of CD media: sealing method, reflective layer, organic dye makeup, where it was manufactured, and your storage practices (please keep all media out of direct sunlight, in a nice cool dry dark place, in acid-free plastic containers; this will triple the lifetime of any media)."

How apropos.

'slashdotters' can eventually fade due to five things that affect the quality of slashdot comments:

• sealing method - The Sealing, in reality is the ceiling, and refers to the need to ceil() slashdot user's age to hit the double digits.
  
• reflective layer - The Reflective layer is the use of low UIDs to represent importance of comments, rather than something actually informative.
  
• organic dye makeup - Most comment's make up are so bad, they're DOA, and one can hear the organ playing.
  
• where it was manufactured - There are no new comments on slashdot, everything is either culled from its dupe, or copied from the Microsoft Hater's handbook.
  
• and your storage practices - Some comments are posted before they are fini
  

He forgot the most important one...

[hal2814]

"(please keep all media out of direct sunlight, in a nice cool dry dark place, in acid-free plastic containers; this will triple the lifetime of any media)." And NEVER ever feed them after midnight. On a more serious note, I used to worry about eventual degradation but it's coming up on 10 years that I've owned a CD-R drive and I have yet to run across a burned CD I cannot read due to this sort of degradation. Maybe at the decade mark, some of my discs will fail me and I'll change my mind but right now I'm not too concerned.

Re:He forgot the most important one...

[Rob T Firefly]

"(please keep all media out of direct sunlight, in a nice cool dry dark place, in acid-free plastic containers; this will triple the lifetime of any media)." And NEVER ever feed them after midnight.

Do not taunt Happy Fun CD.

Re:He forgot the most important one...

[Kenshin]

Do not taunt Happy Fun CD.

Wanring: Happy Fun CD may install a rootkit on your system if it feels threatened.

Re:Price is all that matters in the short run

[Anonymous Coward]

Brilliant. Now try reading them on another drive. See ya! /idiot

You don't get

[sa1lnr]

direct sunlight in your parents basement. ;)

Re:You don't get

[NewWorldDan]

Or, to summarize the article, treat them the same as you would your comic books!

Long term storage

[jo42]

The only way to get your stuff to last more than a generation is to chisel out yer 0's and 1's on clay tablets...

Out of direct sunlight, cool dark place

[blantonl]

please keep all media out of direct sunlight, in a nice cool dry dark place, in acid-free plastic containers; this will triple the lifetime of any media

Well, it's good to know that 95% of slashdotters are already following this practice by inherently storing their media close to themselves, next to their computers.