CD-Recordable discs unreadable in less than two years

CDFreaks.com (by way of SlashDot) ^ | 19 August 2003 | Dennis

[Eala]

The Dutch PC-Active magazine has done an extensive CD-R quality test. For the test the magazine has taken a look at the readability of discs, thirty different CD-R brands, that were recorded twenty months ago. The results were quite shocking as a lot of the discs simply couldn't be read anymore:

Roughly translated from Dutch:

The tests showed that a number of CD-Rs had become completely unreadable while others could only be read back partially. Data that was recorded 20 months ago had become unreadable. These included discs of well known and lesser known manufacturers.

It is presumed that CD-Rs are good for at least 10 years. Some manufacturers even claim that their CD-Rs will last up to a century. From our tests it's concluded however that there is a lot of junk on the market. We came across CD-Rs that should never have been released to the market. It's completely unacceptable that CD-Rs become unusable in less than two years.

On the image you can see the exact same CD-R. On the left you see the outcome of our tests done in 2001. On the right you see the same CD-R in 2003. The colours indicate the severeness of the errors in the following order; white, green, yellow and red whereas white indicates that the disc can be read well and red indicates that it cannot be read.

For those of you who are interested, the original Dutch article can be found here and in the September issue of PC-Active. Please discuss this subject in our Media Forum.

[Eala]

(Excerpting note: Text is here but they don't seem to be serving the image...)

[secret garden]

Bad news Bump.

[BushCountry]

To be honest this is quite stunning. The amount of valuable information lost is staggering, this will compound the problem. People assumed (as did I) that CD-ROMs were a viable backup alternative to tape.

I seen a show that stated that this would be the only period in history without a written record. I am beginning to wonder? Harddrives crash, cd-roms unreadable, tape backup systems falling in disrepair, massive viruses, the data lost (great works of art) is mind boggling.

[Mr Rogers]

I haven't had any problems...

[cake_crumb]

Oh this is wonderful news, especially for people who store their digital photographs on CD. I'll have to ask Mom about her CDRs. She's had her CDR-W for over two years.

[Eala]

I haven't had any reading CD-Rs either, but all mine are much newer. OTOH had a devil of a time writing some yesterday -- two different machines had problems writing some TDK CD-Rs from a batch from which I had no problems writing some a few months ago. I have a nice pile of them in the wastebasket next to me. *\:-(

[Publius6961]

This is no great surprise, or shouldn't be.

There have been extensive discussions in the last few years arguing that the only reliable archival medium is acid-free paper.

Think about it. How many reading this can read 5-1/4 inch floppies? Anyone?
Technology "advances", and all prior means of accessing archived data disappears, with no means or even thought of recovering the trillions bits of data sitting in warehouses rotting.

I remember clearly that most if not all of the data related to the space studies and research of the 50s and 60s already is gone forever.

What is remarkable is that little or no solution has been proposed to this very real problem.

It will be a profound irony when we find ourselves able to view photos from the 1900s more readily than digital images being "archived" today.

[Maelstrom]

Already we have ceased to leave an impact from a civic engineering example.

Nothing we have will last more than a century without regular upkeep.

[Publius6961]

BUMP!

[Joe Bonforte]

Sounds overblown to me. I've been storing stuff with a CD burner for over five years now, and never lost a byte of it. My oldest burned CDs (data or audio) are easily readable.

I don't ever buy no-name CD blanks, which may help.

[Eala]

Harddrives crash

I had thought to get away from my practice of multiple backups; each machine has backups of data from several others on the network (including historical archives of machines retired years ago). But now...

[FreedomPoster]

>>5-1/4 inch floppies? Anyone?

5-1/4 inch floppies? How about 9-track tapes!

[TheBattman]

Where are the lawyers on this? If a company claim 10, 20 years, or even a century, and the disc only remains readable for 20 months or less, that would be fraud....

[RadioAstronomer]

Think about it. How many reading this can read 5-1/4 inch floppies? Anyone?

I can. :-)

I can even read 8" floppies and teletype punch tape still. :-)

[moehoward]

I remember reading likewise bad news about VHS tapes. They were supposed to start loosing data around the two year mark. This has not been the case. Pre-recorded and recorded are both still working great 10 years later.

[RadioAstronomer]

Ummm... 9 track tape too! LOLOLOL!

[BushCountry]

It really isn't overblown, how valuable will your CDs be 25 years from now when CD-ROM Drives don't exist?

[demkicker]

Already we have ceased to leave an impact from a civic engineering example.

Doesn't surprise me one bit with our education system disintegrating before our very eyes.

[RadioAstronomer]

I remember reading likewise bad news about VHS tapes. They were supposed to start loosing data around the two year mark. This has not been the case. Pre-recorded and recorded are both still working great 10 years later.

I still have my very first VHS tape I ever recored back in 1981. It still reads fine 22 years later. :-)

BTW, I have a core stack also. I bet I can read the data off of it 20 years from now. :-)

[dennisw]

WONDERFUL!

Fortunately hard drives are dirt cheap so keep yours cool (install a fan) and buy an extra HD for duplication (backup) and storage. Fan should be blowing on and cooling the underside of the HD. The electronics. This is the point of failure, not the spinning disks inside