CDROMS.....dont last a lifetime....


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sulhan

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May 11, 2002
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Hiee all...

An interesting article...in DPREVIEW......

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0404/04042201cdrlifetime.asp

i personally have experienced it with failure read CDROMS for my digital photos archived 4~5 yrs ago.

At the rate we are writing CDs....i guess...problems like this is highly likely to be experienced by most people......one day...

Just be careful......

rgds,
sulhan
 

Even "good" brands have problems with QC. 4 years back when everyone I knew was happy with Sony, I bought a pack, and every one died in a few months. The TDK's lasted much longer. Today I use Maxell. You can't really be sure of the quality till you stress-test / age-test a few CD's from one batch. And by the time you know there's a problem it may be too late, which is what happened to me.
 

If the user dun have a good archiving plan, good luck for long term.
Some hidden cost to pay... worst, unretrievable lost memories @@

Ask national archive to digitise? Nah, they would rather microfilm. Somemore 1 tiny film can hold up to like a full page of newspaper. How many storage space and giga-pixel needed to do that?

If a strap of film properly stored, water tighted and sunk together with Queen Marry. Chances are the media still able to produce something even there's some damages. For digital, they are all encoded/compress. 1 bit of data gone may mean a big thing.

We can retrieve records cafted on stone, bone which are analog. Paper which are still analog may not last like thousands of year. With digital media, I think we may have lesser and lesser record lost in future because while the media are real thing, the recorded info are not.

When tv revolutionise the world, people said newspaper is near it's doom, with ebook, doomsday for books. Well, something just cannot be replaced, complimenting the shortcoming - yes.
 

i wonder what if the storage is on harddisk
???
fill up the hard disk like then leave it in the dry cabi.... how long will it take to have the fate same as the cdr?

if harddisk is better i would rather spent a bit more on hardisk


actually because of this make me think twice if i 1 2 convert to digital??
i think flim still last longer... my uncles wedding photo 10 years ago still can be printed but there is colour shift... even if that is so there is always a nikon coolscan that have digital ICE.
so makes me really wonder where is digital heading ....lousy storage= lost memories

shot more= write more cd= lost more data
 

*sigh*

Used to think that committing all my photos to cd-rom is the safest option, rather than storing them on harddisk as harddisk might fail.
It seems that the claim for life-time archival quality on cd-roms has to be taken with a pinch of salt... :(
Now worrying if those photo archivals that I have on cds will last... :cry:

sulhan said:
Hiee all...

An interesting article...in DPREVIEW......

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0404/04042201cdrlifetime.asp

i personally have experienced it with failure read CDROMS for my digital photos archived 4~5 yrs ago.

At the rate we are writing CDs....i guess...problems like this is highly likely to be experienced by most people......one day...

Just be careful......

rgds,
sulhan
 

for me...juz keep everything in the drybox....film...cd...everything...too much space anyway...ahaha
 

eventually...all good things mustcome to an end

anyway

"..your taste changes with time.." <<== ths was what my best buddy in RI told me

very true =)
 

SteetShooter,
Haha, I like your thought. haha.

CD is suppose to be 60yrs on spec. but dun quote me. HDD is magnetic and nowaday HDD seems to fail very often. If old, 1st u may not be able to retrieve the data maybe format changes, interface changes. Also the mechnical maybe too old and crash the HDD sector.
 

I do print pics that are important or to capture meomorable moments. it's a backup medium to digital (which I have on a harddisk and DVD+RWs).
 

Hmmm...
Imagine when they decided to save the earth by producing bio-degradeable CDRs...
 

yep. make into print like wat mpenza adviced.
but our grandson may still throw them away haha. atleast after we pass away lah. kekek.
 

din you read abt the new paper CD? 25GB or 2.5GB cannot remember.
 

the article did say that CD-RW last longer than CD-R if I remember correctly. so maybe, that's the right way to go at least for the near future.
 

Yes, it did say that rewritable disks do not suffer from the same problems. Which makes me wonder, bearing in mind they hardly cost much more than write once media. Anyone know the situation with RW disks?
 

wud CD-R last much longer if they r 'gold' based instead of those green dye? anyone has any info?

thx.
 

nightpiper said:
wud CD-R last much longer if they r 'gold' based instead of those green dye? anyone has any info?

thx.

According to this website, the gold-based dyes do last longer. Another source.

Also, the quality of the dye, just like any other product, matters. To quote an article on Practical PC:
"The main issue is that not all dyes are equal. Good dyes cost more to make than cheap ones. Branded quality disks tend to use better quality dyes. The bulk cheap CD-Rs you often find at computer fairs or online are sometimes made using poor quality dyes that will record and verify OK but over time will start to breakdown. In extreme cases you may find you can’t play them back after only a year or so."

So, cheap CD-Rs may lead to nasty surprises in the near future... In any case, if we are serious about archiving, then it's best to take care of our CD media, as Linkster has showed here. And I guess it's advisable to keep a 2nd backup in another media...
 

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