Storage expert warns of short life span for burned CDs And don't count on hard disk drives for long-term storage, either News Story by John Blau JANUARY 10, 2006 Although opinions vary on how to preserve data on digital storage media, such as optical CDs and DVDs, Kurt Gerecke, a physicist and storage expert at IBM Deutschland GmbH, takes this view: If you want to avoid having to burn new CDs every few years, use magnetic tapes to store all your pictures, videos and songs for a lifetime. "Unlike pressed original CDs, burned CDs have a relatively short life...