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Up To 10% of CD-Rs Fail Within a Few Years
Whatever you think about the likelihood that a new kind of DVDs could last for 1,000 years, this note from reader crazyeyes should give you pause about expecting current CD-Rs to be reliably readable for decades. TechARP found a failure rate near 10% for CD-Rs recorded 7 to 9 years ago, after storage in ideal conditions. On some, one or more individual files could not be recovered; others were not reliably readable on two separate drives. "In the past, hard disk drives were small (in capacity) and costly. To make up for the lack of affordable storage, many turned to CD-Rs. As it became common to store backups and personal pictures, videos, etc. on CD-Rs, the lifespan of these discs became a concern. According to manufacturers, CD-Rs should last for decades. Some even quoted an upper limit of 120 years based on accelerated aging tests! That sure is a long time, isn't it? But will CD-Rs really last that long?"
Well you of course have to use an error correcting code. people who don't do that then blame the manufacturer's got what they deserved. For example, personally I get 120 years out of my CDs by encoding 699Megabytes of errorcorretion. this leaves me with 1 byte of data. but it last 120 years.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I would say take the Rosetta Stone approach.
Good advice. I save three word 97 copies of all my documents. One in English, one in classical Greek, and one in in hieroglyphics.
I save mine in Arial, Times New Roman and Wingdings.
Is this sufficient?
Just broadcast your illegal movies and ugly photos toward a large, massive body so that the signals intersect with the earth again later after traveling along space-time geodesics. You can use Sagittarius A* (black hole at the center of the galaxy) for this, but you have to remember to be there to record your 50,000 year old backup once it arrives, because it's not like the hole is your bitch.
30 years ago I punched my programs on "archival quality" punch cards. They weren't like regular cardboard cards, they had a higher rag content that would assure they'd retain their shape longer with less chance of bending.
John