Do Burned CDs Have a Short Life Span?

John Blau, IDG News Service Tue Jan 10, 8:00 AM ET
PC World

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, has his own 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 span of between two to five years, depending on the quality of the CD," Gerecke says. "There are a few things you can do to extend the life of a burned CD, like keeping the disc in a cool, dark space, but not a whole lot more."

The problem is material degradation. Optical discs commonly used for burning, such as CD-R and CD-RW, have a recording surface consisting of a layer of dye that can be modified by heat to store data. The degradation process can result in the data "shifting" on the surface and thus becoming unreadable to the laser beam.

"Many of the cheap burnable CDs available at discount stores have a life span of around two years," Gerecke says. "Some of the better-quality discs offer a longer life span, of a maximum of five years."

Distinguishing high-quality burnable CDs from low-quality discs is difficult, he says, because few vendors use life span as a selling point.
Similar Limitations

Hard-drive disks also have their limitations, according to Gerecke. The problem with hard drives, he says, is not so much the disk itself as it is the disk bearing, which has a positioning function similar to a ball bearing. "If the hard drive uses an inexpensive disk bearing, that bearing will wear out faster than a more expensive one," he says. His recommendation: a hard-drive disk with 7200 revolutions per minute.

To overcome the preservation limitations of burnable CDs, Gerecke suggests using magnetic tapes, which, he claims, can have a life span of 30 years to 100 years, depending on their quality. "Even if magnetic tapes are also subject to degradation, they're still the superior storage media," he says.

But he's quick to point out that no storage medium lasts forever and, consequently, consumers and business alike need to have a migration plan to new storage technologies.

"Companies, in particular, need to be constantly looking at new storage technologies and have an archiving strategy that allows them to automatically migrate to new technologies," he says. "Otherwise, they're going to wind up in a dead-end. And for those sitting on terabytes of crucial data, that could be a colossal problem."

"Some of the better-quality discs offer a longer life span, of a maximum of five years."

Nonsense. I have dozens of CDRs that were burned in 96/97 and are perfectly readable.

Seems to be a lot of such nonsense and half truths in the news today. Coincidence?

I use PAR2 files on all the DVDs I burn. That way even if the disc is damaged I can usually recover everything. As long as the TOC and start of the filesystem are intact.

I, too, have CDRs that were burned in the mid- to late-90s which are still in perfect working order. This is a lot of hooey. I mean, I can see if you leave your CDs sitting on your dashboard in a hot climate, they probably wouldn't last too long. The same thing would happen to a tape. I think it's safe to say, as with any type of recording/storage media, there are no guarantees. However, 2 to 5 years is a joke. This guy is either paid-off by the industry or owns stock in magnetic tapes.

Yesterday, I was going through old CD-Rs I had burned, looking for tunes I backed up. Many were more than five years old. Not one failed to work.

Good idea goldenpi, I'll have to start doing that. What do you allocate, 10% or so?

I've read tech articles that say CDs of any type can be expected to have a useful life of 10 years or so.

It's mainly due to oxidation of the metallic medium used on the CD. I don't have any that old yet, but I have cassettes that are 20 years old, and they're still usable.

I have CDs from 1988 that still play just fine. CD-R's from '98 have no problems. I must be one very careful guy. Riiiiigghht.

Another perspective is that of the disc manufacturers who claim lifetimes of 50-200 yrs.

http://www.osta.org/technology/cdqa13.htm

haven't had any problems with cds but I have a number of dvds that turned to shite..............

Out of all the CD Rs that I recorded on, all worked fine for me.

And all the CDs that we brought wayyyyy back in 1986....no problems whatsoever.

Yo man… this is gonna’ be a first for me, but I gotta’ disagree with all of y’all on this. The story is sorta’ bogus… about CDs just, what?… disappearing its data after a couple of years? Man, I don’t know about that. CD burners came onto the market late 99’, at the newly cheap price range of about $300. I know this because I worked a technology retailer at the time, and I was one of the very first people to own a burner for personal use. (back then, you couldn’t even get an HP burner running with Windows 98 without calling tech support and messing with drivers) I was also one of the first people in my area to start producing mix CDs without the use of studio burners, so in 99, really no one had burners… not the geeky, because of money, and not the rich, because of complicated software / hardware issues. (People sometimes fudge years when it comes to technology.)

So I will say that of most people I know, I have the oldest collection of CD-Rs. (back when they were at least a dollar EACH.) I HAVE noticed some unknown “disk errors” from about 1 in 6 of my oldest CD-Rs with audio… and some got weird static towards the 3 to 6 th tracks, mainly referring to my mix CD masters, which are kept in mint condition and two or three copies of the same “master” were made, incase one or more become damaged, corrupt or stolen. My mix CDs suffer from being stolen more than becoming corrupt. They’re kept out of sunlight, haven’t been damaged or scratched and all CDs were tested originally when they were first burnt. Not to mention one identical CD will work fine and another won’t. So, although rare, some perfectly good working CDs somehow stopped working over time.

One thing that will be said is that CDs have come a long way, back in the “2x” days when I started out, to the “50x” days of today. But, CD-Rs of today DO have a short lifespan. So much so, that buying a “cheap” spindle of CDs are guaranteed not to last as long as more expensive ones. I can’t say whether the data “disappears” over time like the article claims… but their “lifespan” is shorter in the fact that these b*tches scratch almost from the start they’re taken out of the burner. “Pressed” CDs are pressed down, and CD-Rs are a dye system that the laser burns the dye into different shades of color, representing the “groove” pattern… or some kinda’ sh*t like that.

These things are NOT made to last, and although I have experienced mint condition CDs becoming corrupt, I can’t say CD-Rs will die over time from being left on a shelf… but they WILL become unusable MUCH, MUCH QUICKER than normal, pressed CDs… even compared to more expensive CD-Rs. (I myself buy cheap ones, just for data burning.)

I for one hate magnetic storage devices, such as tape drives and all that crap… and think the data for this article was manipulated to benefit the magnetic data corps… but CD-Rs, as described above, DO have a short lifespan; as much as I hate to say it. (Again, 5 out of 6 of my 6-to-7 year old mint CD-Rs DO work to this day.) I’m here’ta speak the truth, whether it pisses people off or not.

Peace & Respect
Mixer Jaëxx @ http://www.supportUG.com

"CD burners came onto the market late 99’, at the newly cheap price range of about $300. I know this because I worked a technology retailer at the time, and I was one of the very first people to own a burner for personal use. (back then, you couldn’t even get an HP burner running with Windows 98 without calling tech support and messing with drivers)"

The first system that i "home" built, was in late spring of 98. At that time, i bought and installed a Yamaha 4X CD burner(non rewritable). It utilized a SCSI interface and cost me around $430. I still have the unit as it only produced 2 coasters in the 300 or so disc's i burned. Many of my friends ALREADY had 2X burners from other manufacturers and were envious of the "speed" i could achieve.

My system archive backups start from the fall of 98. All those discs are currently readable with my new hardware. I even store them in those huge cd books which are considered more harmful than the jewel case.

This guy has got to be on the payroll of the hardware/blank media companies. Plant this seed of doubt in your head so you will run out and purchase Blu-Ray/HD to re-archive everything you have. Riiiiight. I have CDRs from '95 that are still 100% fine, both data and Redbook. Yeah, low-quality media may be a factor, but that was also true with cassettes. My 25-year-old Maxell UD-XL tapes are perfect, the cheapass factory cassettes are dead.

Lots o' factors involved.

My 1970 Sony 350 Reel to Reel tape deck still plays Maxell UD35-7 1800ft tapes just fine.
(sounds almost as good as the vinyl it was recorded from in 1972)

The Ampex and Scotch tapes are getting brittle and starting to delaminate but are good enough to get a good CDR copy.

The 7" Realistic Supertapes (Radio Shack)
are falling apart (even the 1.5mil 1200ft ones) and jam the machine.

Same thing with 20yo VHS videotapes.
The Fuji, Memorex and Maxell tapes are readable with some dropouts, tearing and noise but the Sony, GE and Centron tapes just wont play even in a new semi-pro svhs machine.

I guess the lesson is backup your cheap media first to the new format while you have the chance and then take care of backing up good media before it craps out.

I used to repair 8-track car decks.
The fact that one DVD of mp3's could replace a truckload of those things gives me enormous respect for the engineers involved in the removable data storage industry.

seriously, who uses CDs anymore? i thought everybody had an iPod or another MP3 player.

Cd-R's do have a life. Maybe not five years, but you won't be able to pick up an 80 year old CD-R (like you can with a record, for instance) and listen to it. Course, with the crap the music industry is producing, in 80 years everyone will look at this period in entertainment history as a bad memory, anyway, best forgotten.

And by then, the entire world will be ruled by

DAMNED DIRTY APES

anyway.

Yeah, CD burners have been around since before 1999. I bought my first CD burner in 1999. Before that I had a friend who would bring over his 2x burner that he had had since about 1996.

A few of the first CD-Rs I ever bought used a cheap coating that could easilly flake if continuosly used and had maybe two or three suffer this fate. About mid to late 2001, the major manufacturers started using a better coating, but I still have a CD I burned on my friends 2x from about 1998 that still works.

The bottom line is if you take care of something, then it will last a good long time. I hear of people (my sister comes to mind) who must buy a new VCR, TV, Computer, what have you every two years or so. I've taken care of my stuff and have only had to buy a new TV over the past 10 years! So if you take care of something, you can expect it to last a good long while.

Yep. 400M per disc, or 10%. Enough to recover from even serious damage, with dd to read the files off.

Something important to remember here is that music, on CD or CD-R, is almost indestructable. Red-book audio not only has extensive error-protection, but is also error tolerant. The famous demonstration where a hole was drilled in a CD does work.

Data discs, by contrast, are fragile. They will be damaged by time, sunlight, heat, scratches...