Attached Link: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/story.jsp?story=513486

I read that earlier,and was a little concerned (that would include your softwear disc). Trying to think of a game plan. The only thing I've come up with is to make new copies of everything once a year to be on the safe side. Anyone have a better idea,I would really like to hear it. SWAMP

well I also have CD-Rs that are 5 years old and work fine... and VHS tapes that are 20 and play fine. How you store media is very important. Also don't buy the cheapo brands like "Verbatim"

Oh and commercial disks are not the same as burnt media. They are replicated, using a completely different technology and will last much longer.

Attached Link: http://www.cdrfaq.org/faq07.html#S7-5

at less than a dollar a gig, i'd say a solution is external hard drives.

I still have discs over 5yrs old that are usable, storing them in a dark cupboard & not leaving them in direct sunlight at any time will lengthen the life of your discs.

My understanding is that its the re-writable CD's (CD-RW) that have problems. Using write once CD-R's have not caused me any trouble. I always ensure that I burn everything in one go and close the disc. Store out of prelonged bright sunlight and extreams of temperature.

My experience of CD-RW is also poor. At current prices, they're just not worth it. Though RW for DVD-sized media is a bit more tempting. I did use to use packet-writing on CD-R, but for reliable back-up I reckon it's still better to burn a whole disk at once. And hard drives are enough bigger than even DVD that it just doesn't seem worth the fiddle. Or you can do what I used to, the Zipdrives and CD-R, only using CD-R and writing a set to DVD. [looks at Runtime...] Floppy disks are pointless.

As a Software Engineer I know how poor CDs are as a long-term storage medium. Many CDs work just fine AS LONG AS THE READING DRIVE IS THE SAME AS THE WRITING DRIVE. If not ... you may be out of luck. Very often backups are needed to recover from a systems crash - or when the user buys new hardware. In both cases relying on one particular drive is not very wise. This is not a joke - simple Google searches confirm this to disbelievers. Also the quality of the cd affects greatly: it's not a big secret that cds costing 50 cents DO NOT hold data as well and as long as cds that cost 5 dollars a piece. Quality costs. I've been using CDs as storage medium and transportation medium since the very first cd-writers came out sooo many years back. Nowadays I use only tape-backups to make REAL backups of my stuff - cds are not reliable enough. Tape backups have saved my arse from 2 disk crashes. As a side note ... businesses almost never back up their items on optical medias for the exact same reason - it's not reliable enough.

While I agree for truly long term storage an external HD or tape backup are probably the wiseset bet... decent well maintained optical media "should" be good for a few years... I've had like 3 CD burners... over the last 5 or 6 years, and borrowed friends burners before that. all of the disks I've burned have worked on all of my regular CD rom drives, on several computers. Not counting failed burns, I have only ever had one disk go bad... and I was able to retrieve most of the data.

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Any magnetic media is a worse gamble for long term storage than than CDs. A lot of NASA data stored on tape 20 years ago is gone. Tapes are a plastic medium and deteriorate over time. Magnetic media is subject to magnetic disruptions and the inherent deterioration of the media it's on. Hard drives crash and destroy some of the data on them. A recovery service, for hundreds of dollars, can recover the undamaged data, but can't do much about the bits that were physically scratched out of existence. I can't remember the exact figures, but magnetic media is considered to have a life of about twenty years and optical about a hundred. That doesn't mean that the media disintegrates in that time--it's more an expectation of the fidelity of the data on the media. For videotape, a few lost bits of data aren't very significant because of the vast volume of information that is still good. The same few bad bits could make an executable file unable to successfully install a program or make a document unreadable. Paper is still the medium of choice for the Library of Congress because a lot of paper works go back thousands of years. No modern technology can match that proven history. Given a choice of magnetic or optical media for storing Poser files, I'll stick with CDRs.

Yea well I'm not looking to keep my Poser files for 100 years... 6 years is a good enough stretch to me. It won't happen with cds - with current cd-drives. That is because of the data amounts needed to be beacked up! Only 1 unco-operative CD spoils a decent back-up plan. Backing up 50 gigs... once a week ... with guaranteed working back-ups (I keep 2 back-ups)... Lots of cds... I've already experienced that. RReynolds talks about optical medias life-time... however HOME BURNT CDs are a different story altogether - they are TOTALLY different story than professionally created optical storage disks that are meant to hold data. In many cases, as I pointed out already, the facts that cd-writers and readers use exotic standards (yep, different manufacturers make their own "standards" when it suits them) make the cds burnt home not readable by other drives - I've seen it happen multiple times. I have burnt cds at home that can be read only by old 4x cd-readers etc etc. CDs are a good media for transportation of data, but for back-ups... for stuff I've paid money for ... not my choice. Just 3 days ago I experienced an event at work: two burnt cds could not be read by my work comp's cd-reader. I used another cd on another pc over lan - that is not always possible. But I guess everybody makes their choices.

What we are probably missing here is the usual problem...big business. "Big business" is perpetually in pursuit of selling us something that requires "return purchases". The days of making a product that one buys and uses till it wears out (a mop, for example) are being replaced by items that require "maintenance (mops with squirting cleaners and replacable sheets/pads, for example). Among the first to do this was the diaper industry who successfully convinced the masses they needed to get rid of a cloth diaper that lasted the entire life of a baby and use throwaway "Pampers"...the concern on their part being more about having repeat purchases than convenience. I suggest we COULD have permanent "forever" CD-Rs but that would cut back on sales as people ponder the need to re-burn their "libraries" every few years to make sure they had them. But, why make a CD that lasts a lifetime when we can make one that doesn't? (and therefore require the purchase of more CDs)

Berserga wrote: "I have only ever had one disk go bad" Sometimes that might be enough to spoil an otherwise working back-up plan.

RReynolds: you may want to update your information about MODERN tape archiving technology. Basing your opinion on magnetic media to technology used by NASA in the 70's is not very valid. Modern DLT tapes eat up 500gigs of data in one tape with GUARANTEES of recovery by the manufacturer. My old Travan tapes have guarantees for 100000 writings - and the technology to warn me should I use a tape that migth not be able to hold my data. And again: why do you guys think big serious businesses use magnetic media (from single DLT drives to tape-archiver robots) to store business-critical data? ... Because it costs them a lot less to buy the tapes than to pay the damages caused by lost data.

I've got CD's I burned in '94 on a $1800 external single speed burner... still work perfect. The secret is not using crap blank CD's; if you can see through them without benifit of a strong light, don't use it. Ricoh greens are warranted for 20 years, i'm not sure if you can still get them, though.

I think I'll get me one of those stone tablet writers and backup everything on a lump of granite... then encase it in Amber and bury it in a peat bog!

"Any magnetic media is a worse gamble for long term storage than than CDs." At the rate media and technology is evolving, any media is a poor bet for storing more than a few years. I share files on CDR's, but an external hard drive is my choice for backup. They're fast, reliable, very re-writable, and there are some relatively compact ones. FYI: Same topic in a thread in the OT forum, title "Lies! lies! lies!"

You can get a Maxtor or Western Digital external harddrive (USB or firewire) for around $150. I'm getting one next week. Not sure about CDR longevity, but having to remember where I put things on CDR's is enough to wear me out. A lot easier and quicker to access what I need to create an image from that 10G runtime if I have it stored on an external 120 G harddrive.

"having to remember where I put things on CDR's is enough to wear me out." AMEN!!! :D

"having to remember where I put things on CDR's is enough to wear me out." Now, ain't that the true! :)

there's programs out there that let you catalog them, being a nut, I catalog everything..;) currently installing the various characters I've downloaded over the years (thanks, Sixus..;)..and been going back a ways into the stack..;)

"I catalog everything" Some of us are a bit lazy "organizationally challenged." ;) Plus, I travel, so it's easier to carry an external hard drive than a gazillion CDs. To each his/her own...

If anyone is looking for a geektoy, you might want to check out the powered CD storage towers that KDS puts out (the silver and blue ones with the oodles of disk trays, and the decimal keyboard on the top of the unit). I've been pleasantly surprised by them. The software is the real kicker, though. It reads the file structure of a disk you're archiving, and adds it to the database, so you have a snapshot of your directory for each CD in the tower (and it hold 75 per tower, up to 127 towers ganged via USB). There's also fields for additional info on the disk, whether it's been loaned out and to whom, etc. They -look- cheap, but the y seem to do the job so far...

I bought a new 8X DVDRW and sure enough, my old CDRs went bad. I couldn't install or see anything on them. In fact, the PC refused to work ~ indicating the disc was bad - until it was removed from the drive. The original (press) CDs still work and can be installed. For some reason, I tried the bad CDs on the old PC and sure enough everything came to life again. I don't doubt that CDs will fade but try a old drive before you give up on them.

Pakled.. do you back up your catalogue then? I just realize that I don't L I rely on myDiskCatalog to find stuff but I just realized that if my HD fails, then my catalogue is gone too. A chain is always only as strong as the weakest link. Another thing: Don't burn your cd's at top speed. Seriously a 4x takes longer of course than a 48 or 52 or whatever, but it's more thoroughly burned (deeper holes or whatever according to my computer savvy colleague)

I use an external harddrive and windows briefcase. with the briefcase it only updates what has changed so it doesn't take so long.

I backup my Poser files on to CD-R. Whew! Just in time. This thread is no not related to Poser that it's not even funny. Why is it in the Poser thread and not in a more relevant forum like Hardware or Computers or Technical or OT? Because I just mentioned the word Poser, so that makes the entire thread relevant to Poser. So, there, now you can't move it. It is so relevant.

A while back, else-net, I was discussing CD-R with some people I know in the music business. Apparently, writing CD data at high speed is more likely to lead to read problems. The laser doesn't go from 0 to 100 in zero time, and the high-speed write burns a fuzzy-edged mark, For something to work reliably in older audio-CD readers, you have to burn slow. Which is frustrating for people with lots of data. Anyway, it may be worth holding back on the write speed. The modern drives can switch the laser more rapidly, but the top write-speed is still pushing the limits.

I don't really buy into the "2 Years" limit. I've had CDs for over five years now and they still work. Sometimes they don't because of dust and grease... but wipe it off and it works just fine. On the other hand, some have scratches that once polished, works fine. I do have some that don't work or behave irratic which may relate to differnce with a newer drive. Perhaps the cheap CDs are the real culprit because of the cheap material used to build them but with falling prices, every CD is now CHEAP!!! I do like the idea with using a hard drive as a back up. It will last really really long (decades?) the less you use it. However, if you don't use it enough, will the motor seize up and die?

I got some really old hard-drives at home. Last year I tested a 42MB drive (dated to leave the manufacturer in 1990) ... worked just fine. At work we had a bit of fun with a 10MB hard-drive from 1986. It still works (powers up and spins, at least), but we don't have any controller's to plug it in... The real issue in this thread is not how long some people have had their data readable in cd's ... it's about the chances took when relying on cds as back-up media. It proves nothing if I have 30 working cds unless I test their performance one by one with a different drive than where they were burnt. Also putting a cd in drive and reading the contents is NOT enough to test the integrity - one needs to read all written bits and not just the TOC (Table of Contents). TOCs are stored in a different manner than the actual data and also in a different physical location in the cd. So if you see your zips and exes in the TOC, you still can't be sure they work unless you test their operability.