Longevity of CD-Rs

Read an article in a computer-type magazine.

Sure, home-burned CD-Rs can last 20, 30, 40 years. But it's highly variable; may last only two years before the signal degrades. Depends on the brand name.

They did a test with a whole bunch of brands, and discovered that the "name brands" (i.e. brands you've actually heard of) worked fine -- but "no-name/generic" brands degraded, and would be unreadable after two years.

Reason: Cheap materials, sloppy tolerences. The "logo" of the off-brands soaked through into the data side, thus corrupting the data.

Implication: If you're archiving data -- like digital photos, or home movies -- pay the extra 30 cents/disk and get a name-brand CD. And it's good practice to re-burn CDs every few years, anyhow, just to "refresh" the data: read the CD to the hard drive, then burn a new CD.


--GG