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THE most "archival" cd?


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Won't this a moot point when the CD drive goes the way of all other removable media drives?

 

Who remembers 5 1/4" floppy drives? (or the 8" floppy). The 3 1/2" floppy is going that way now. Why do we think the CD drive as we know it today will be any different?

 

Of course permenent media will do the same. At least it will be easier to bulk copy archived data over to whatever media we will be using in 2010.

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<i>Who remembers 5 1/4" floppy drives? (or the 8" floppy). The 3 1/2" floppy is going that way now. Why do we think the CD drive as we know it today will be any different? </i><p>

 

The small fortune I and many others already have invested in music CD's. The format has lasted a really long time already and you will note that much of the retail industry will likely resist the cost of retooling for a new media size (Record->Cassette Tape->CD->DVD). Have you noted how most new drives that have any market success tend to use the same physical dimensions. And the same physical dimensions allow for backward read compatibility. i.e., Have you ever seen a DVD reader that could not red CDs?. Have you ever seen a 3.5" floppy drive that could read 5.25" floppies? Computers are leaving the land of elite technology and entering the commercial realm. i.e., Have you see a road built that does not support a car from 1910?<p>

 

just some thoughts,<p>

 

Sean

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CDs will not be going anywhere fast, mainly due to music CDs. They have been replaced by DVDs for data backup because there is a clear advantage (much higher capacity).

 

After almost a decade(!), DVD audio and SACD have not managed to kill off CDs. They are clearly better from a technological POV, but (and this is the point) no one cares because they are happy with CDs, they see no real advantage to changing formats.

 

It is much more likely that the current crop of DVD formats will be killed off, firstly by BluRay high capacity DVDs, and then later by something else.

 

When music fans see a need to change (remember how long LPs have been around) CD might be killed off, but not for a while (look at how long cassettes survived).

 

The IT industry lives on a lot of BS and hype that is largely self-generated and self-serving. Don't forget commercial realities.

 

carl.

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John: I think the answer is to store data on a big hard drive then back everything up to a portable hard drive. Both are cheap, fast and easy.

 

Then when storage technology changes, just do a bulk copy over to whatever the new format is.

 

HD's are so cheap there is simply no reason to offload data to removable media any longer.

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  • 2 months later...

Yeah, CDs are universally accepted by the mainstream so they won't be going anywhere

soon. I'm guessing that you will be able to read CDs for a very long time. The bigger issue

is the environment that you store you media and how you treat it. Even the best CDs will

start to degrade in the wrong environment. I would suggest making more than one copy of

each CD, storing them in a cool dry place and also keeping the images on a hard drive

somewhere just to be safe. Store your images on multiple media in multiple places (on and

offsite) and you should be in pretty good shape.

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