Slashdot Mirror
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)."
I now have some no-name-brand CDs burned in 1998 that are still good. I have never had a good, name-brand CD fail for any reason. The only failure I have ever had was the top layer peeling off some el-cheapo CDs which were stored in plastic sleeves, not jewel cases. One BIG key the article does not mention is to store the disc where the burned surface is not touching anything, such as in a jewel case -- the article should have mentioned that. Do not put in plastic sleeves or cases with slide-in sleeves. Odd that the article is a sales pitch for that T-Y brand -- what about RiData? That's what I use for DVD archival storage. I haven't been using DVD-R long enough to comment on how long they'll last. I have always found the alarmist idea that CDs will spontaneously self-destruct to be sort of over-the-top. CDs seem much more reliable for archiving than any other medium like diskette, hard disk, USB flash, or tape. Flash is more reliable, but has to be refreshed or it will disappear.
Oh, I'm so tired of these articles. Everyone concentrates on dye fading, because I guess it's easy to measure and quantify. If dye fading were the failure mechanism for these disks, they'd last twenty to two hundred years... according to vendors and researchers.
Everyone says "I've never had any trouble with brand ABC," but the thing is, ABC varies depending on what you read or who you talk to. Some people insist they've never had any trouble with the cheapest generic products they buy at Staples. Some say any name brand is OK. Some say Verbatim is good. Some say to stay away from Verbatim. The more sophisticated will tell you not to use anything but phtalocy- pthalocy- pffthal- the Mitsui stuff. Others (like this guy) are partial to other dyes. Some say you're a fool to use anything but Mitsui Gold... some say they're an overpriced waste of money.
It's all authoritative sounding talk, talk, talk and no two experts say the same thing.
In reality, I don't think anyone understands very well what actually causes these disks to fail in the real world. I've had disks fail in less than two years--maybe only a couple-three in many hundreds, but certainly not zero--and I've never seen any obvious pattern as to which of them fail.
The thing that really bothers me is that drives and/or their accompanying software drivers never give you any indication of what the signal quality of a particular disk is. If they did, you could detect that a disk was deteriorating before it failed, and make a copy. As it is, they just keep silently keep correcting errors behind your back and you have no warning until there is utter, catastrophic failure.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!