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CD/CDR Lifetime? -- Your experience...

Yaron Kidron , Mar 31, 2004; 07:06 a.m.

Ok, now that a lot is being shot and archived digitally, what is your experience with CDR brands? I've tried quite a few myself, and to tell it upfront bluntly, they all suck. The best brands (read most expensive) last 2 years and from that point its all down hill. The cheapos need to be handled with gloves. This is very discouraging. I mainly shoot film, but I do scan my slides-- after a recent check, most of my burned CDs (3 years and over) have problems reading; my chromes are ofcourse all intact and ready for a rescan.

What brands are you using?

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Michael Matsil , Mar 31, 2004; 09:24 a.m.

Yaron....When you say, "..it's all down hill...," do you mean the data is no longer on the disk or is corrupted? I've never heard of properly handled CDR's with that short a life. You might want to think about where your CDR's are being stored. There may be an environmental factor which is hurting your disks. For starters, if your disks are stored near your CRT, that's not good. The radiation has been said to be a factor in disk deterioration. Let us know where you store your disks.

Ronald Smith , Mar 31, 2004; 09:36 a.m.

In a related question, are the FujiFilm CD-R's going to be "safe" for archiving photographs? I have heard that Taiyo Yudens are quite good, worth the price they command.

Steve Chan , Mar 31, 2004; 12:35 p.m.

I'm curious myself about the longevity of the media, given so many people who complain about 2 year lifespan. What I wonder is how they handle the media. This article:

(link)

Points to some really common practices being dangerous to the CD (such as applying labels!).

Maybe I'll go dig up some 2 year old CD's and see how they are doing. FWIW, Kodak Ultima Gold CD's claim to be archival quality.

Lucas Griego , Mar 31, 2004; 12:41 p.m.

Double CD back up w/ hard drive back up as well.

This is why to be really safe - it's been you should back up onto 2 seperate but duplicate CD's and store one them off-site. Make sure to verify what you have burned and do not compress anything. I go one step further and back everything up onto a secondary hard drive as well.

Be careful about how you label your CD's - adhesives and markers supposedly do cause malfunctions to the CD's over time. You can get markers especially made for labelling CD's... but I don't bother. Just slip a thumbnail print-out into the sleeve and then into an A4 (or letter size) binder.

Two CD's may seem like overkill - but if I lose even one image and a client calls up and wants that one image again.. I am out a whole lot more than the cost of a couple of CD's and the burn time.

As much as I like digital and there was a bit of satisfaction recently when going through my files and being able to pull out nice, perfectly preserved strips of 120 tranny and scanning them again. Sigh. LOL.

Maybe someone has better ideas. Anyone?

Maureen M , Mar 31, 2004; 01:25 p.m.

I have burned hundreds of photo CD-Rs over the last few years, from the cheapest of the cheap to Mitsui Gold. So far I have not found any that have gone bad after a successful burning. Storage techniques are basic - store them in jewel cases or paper CD envelopes, standing vertically on edge (not lying horizontally flat), protected from heat and light.

Plus, remember that the dyes/metals are deposited on the "label" side of the CD-R, so writing on them or using adhesive lables can cause damage.

Just a couple of days ago I pointed out to a friend that he shouldn't have his spindle of 100 blank CD-Rs stored on his window ledge in full sunlight, as the heat is obviously bad, and the sunlight can damage the dyes. He brushed off my suggestions as paranoid, since he believes the old nonsense that CDs are indestructable. To each his or her own...

Aaron W. , Mar 31, 2004; 02:19 p.m.

Based on my experiences with CD-R, I completely agree with Maureen. So far I have had no problems whatsoever recovering and re-printing image-files from 5-6 year old CDs!

Michael Matsil , Mar 31, 2004; 02:28 p.m.

I'll say it again.....Yaron should evaluate his storage site for possible sources of radiation which can corrupt CDR information. Just look at this thread and you'll find some who have constant problems of short CD life and others who have had not a single mishap. It's not the medium, it's the user.

Phil V. , Mar 31, 2004; 02:34 p.m.

Yaron, something is very wrong here (perhaps its your burner) and Lucas, I think you are taking backup to a rediculous level!

I only shoot & scan 35mm and I have been archiving my image-files onto CD-R for the past 8-years. During that time, I have had 3 different burners (graduating in speed from 8x to 52x) and used several different 'brand-name' CD-R blanks including Memorex, Sony, and TDK - all very successfully (but admittedly, I've never tried using CD-RW). Because the colors of my earlier prints are noticeably fading and/or shifting, earlier this year I reloaded those 8-year old images from the CDs on which they were archived and re-printed them. Not one of those files exhibited any problems... the entire process worked flawlessly!

To further Maureen's comment about sunight exposure, I might add that since CD-Rs are written by coherent light, it's been my feeling that exposure to light (especially sunlight) could accelerate content corruption of CD-R media (just as it brings about degradation of print-colors). So I have always kept my blank CD-Rs in a drawer and my written CD-Rs in a CD-R wallet.

Quang-Tuan Luong , Mar 31, 2004; 03:21 p.m.

The PhotoCDs I got back in 1994 are still readable. Mitsui gold claim about 70 years, but I expect by then there will be better media, so I use them only for depositing at the Library of Congress. Terra Galleria Stock Photography


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