More CDR longevity [Was: Film vs Digital Photography: THE FINAL DEBATE]

[Phred]

In article <NCs5c.8898$_3.114039@typhoon.sonic.net>,
John Navas <spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote:[POSTED TO rec.photo.digital - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]In <c35kbu$199$1@nnrp.gol.com> on Tue, 16 Mar 2004 09:57:11 +0900, "David J.Littleboy" <davidjl@gol.com> wrote:"John Navas" <spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote: >no CD has yet been proven to last such a long time. Depends on what you mean by proof -- lots of tests have been run over quite a few years, and CD-R has been passing with flying colors, even when stored under less than ideal conditions.Do you have any good references on that? There's quite a bit of noise on thenet claiming that some CD-Rs die within a couple of years...By no means exhaustive:The National Media Laboratory (NML) rates the life expectancy of CD-Rmedia at greater than 50 years for temperatures less than 25C andhumidities less than 50%.For a detailed discussion, see Kodak's "Permanence and Handling of CDs" at<http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/products/storage/pcd/techInfo/permanence.shtml>;

The CDRs may have a life, but your URL has died:

<quoting>
Page Not Found
Sorry, the page you were trying to access,
http://www.kodak.
com/global/en/professional/products/storage/pcd/techInfo/permanence.
shtml
does not exist.
</quoting>

(But I do recall a Kodak page from about 1996 on the topic -- that was
probably when people were still making things to last. ;-)
e.g., In general, storage temperatures for CDs should not be any warmer than about 25°C (77°F) when archival permanence is desired. Cooler

Aaahh... The magic 25C. Every friggin' consumer product from tablets
to tea leaves has to be stored at or below 25C. Doesn't anyone else
live in the bloody tropics?
temperatures (down to about 10°C or 50°F) will help ensure the longest possible life expectancy. Relative humidity conditions should be in the range of 20% to 50% RH for best results.and Under accelerated test conditions, Kodak writable CD products have a projected life expectancy of more than 200 years when stored appropriately. Many CD-ROM discs can be expected to have 100 years of life, or more, under similar circumstances.


Cheers, Phred.

--
ppnerkDELETE@THISyahoo.com.INVALID

[Mike Richter]

Phred wrote: In article <NCs5c.8898$_3.114039@typhoon.sonic.net>, John Navas <spamfilter0@navasgroup.com> wrote:

The National Media Laboratory (NML) rates the life expectancy of CD-R media at greater than 50 years for temperatures less than 25C and humidities less than 50%. For a detailed discussion, see Kodak's "Permanence and Handling of CDs" at <http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/products/storage/pcd/te- chInfo/perm anence.shtml>; The CDRs may have a life, but your URL has died:

(But I do recall a Kodak page from about 1996 on the topic -- that was probably when people were still making things to last. ;-)

Until a couple of years ago, Kodak made media for which they claimed
(with some justification) longer life than those from others.

They cost a bit more, so the market vanished. It's not surprising, then,
that the page did as well.

Mike
--
mrichter@cpl.net
http://www.mrichter.com/

[David Chien]

In the very beginning, the CD-R discs were actually gold reflective
layer discs (almost no such thing as silver discs until later). This
was a decade + ago.

You had Mitsui Gold, Kodak Gold, and a few other makers in the market.
Over time, the market shifted over to cheaper silver-looking reflective
layer discs due to cost, and since people are cheap, that's what they
bought.

Nowadays, due to the limited market for expensive discs, there is only
one main manufacturer I know of of true gold reflective layer discs --
Mitsui Gold.

These are nice discs, there's nothing wrong with them, but they are pricey.

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Keep in mind that as long as your silver discs last about 10 years or
so, you'll be fine anyways -- there's no real reason to keep the CD-Rs
more than 10 years since you'll be moving over to DVD or whatever else
is the latest media then. (after all, who has a 12" floppy disc drive
and a computer that can actually pull off the data? Migrate the data
before the medium becomes obsolete!)

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