steve_daggs Posted March 27, 2023 Share Posted March 27, 2023 In going through my equipment closet, I found some backup CDs I burned in 2002. I recalled how much concern there was back then about the lifespan of a CD and how reliable it would be as a storage source for digital images. One CD, a Memorex 48X, was originally silver, had yellowed around the outer edge but was in good condition and had been stored in a box for over 21 years. I popped it into my CD/DVD drive and was able to open every file! I tried several others (different brands) with the same outcome. I can't say that I was surprised, but my confidence in CDs and DVDs as a storage source has been affirmed. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hjoseph7 Posted March 29, 2023 Share Posted March 29, 2023 This is good news ! I have a bunch of Photo CD's that are over 15 years old that I would like to peruse once I get a chance. Since CD's are a relatively new storage method, nobody really knew how long they would last. I have some 10-15 year old CD's with nothing but music stored on them and they never gave me a problem. The biggest problem with CD's are the ones that contain 'Code' or Programming. Once the Operating System changes, or if the programming language used was modified, then that CD becomes obsolete. I have a bunch of those CD's sitting on the shelf. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niels - NHSN Posted March 29, 2023 Share Posted March 29, 2023 Most of my write-once CD’s are OK. My RW-CD’s - not so much, nor my Sony MiniDisc’s. Too much trust in innovation - I cry when I think about what I have lost. Niels Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikemorrellNL Posted March 29, 2023 Share Posted March 29, 2023 Good news about the old CD's! Though no-one knew (or knows) for sure how long CD's remain 'readable', the consensus seems to be that the readability of CD's is not 'forever'. A quick browse on Google turns up that the degradation rate of CD's depends on factors like exposure to light, and changes in temperature and humidity. And - as @Niels - NHSN points out whether the CD's were burned just once or were R/W CD's. Maybe, the fact that the old CD's have been hidden away in a closet for 20 years has helped their longevity! Personally, I would copy the files you want from the old CD's onto a different medium soon! I threw most of my old (20-year) 'back-up' CD's away (just by looking at the labels) when I last moved house. I still have a couple left over but my current (newer) Laptop doesn't have an internal CD/DVD player. I suppose I could buy and connect an external one but this doesn't seem worth the investment. I seriously doubt whether they contain any still relevant info (documents, photo's) that I don't also have backed up elsewhere. For years, I've backed up all my photos (and relevant documents) to 2 external hard drives. More recently to an external SSD drive. I want to have a 2nd back-up medium, either 'in the cloud'' or on a 2nd SSD-drive. It was fun to pluck one of my old (700MB) CD-R/W's at random and realize that an external 1 TB SSD drive (the cheapest) can store the contents of these 14.000 CD's! My SSD is 2TB (the equivalent of 28.000 CD's) and smaller than a pack of cigarettes. There are also, of course, 4TB SSD-drives. So IMHO, the days of CD-R/W's as 'back-up media' have long since come to an end. Funnily enough, you can still buy them (700MB) on-line 🙂 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Parsons Posted March 29, 2023 Share Posted March 29, 2023 I agree it is nice, during my life time, to have reliable storage for all of my 'irreplaceable' images - but when I pop my clogs, who is going to know or care ? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanKlein Posted March 30, 2023 Share Posted March 30, 2023 8 hours ago, Tony Parsons said: I agree it is nice, during my life time, to have reliable storage for all of my 'irreplaceable' images - but when I pop my clogs, who is going to know or care ? Tony, If you want to be memorialized, you'd be better off climbing a mountain and chipping an outline of your hand into the granite. 2 Flickr gallery: https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanklein2000/albums Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Parsons Posted March 30, 2023 Share Posted March 30, 2023 10 hours ago, AlanKlein said: Tony, If you want to be memorialized, you'd be better off climbing a mountain and chipping an outline of your hand into the granite. Thank you, Alan, for the suggestion - but these days, I have to stop half way while climbing the stairs to my flat ! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanKlein Posted March 30, 2023 Share Posted March 30, 2023 7 hours ago, Tony Parsons said: Thank you, Alan, for the suggestion - but these days, I have to stop half way while climbing the stairs to my flat ! That's one of the reasons when my wife and I retired, we moved into a 55+ community and a one story house with no basement or second floor. Flickr gallery: https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanklein2000/albums Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Parsons Posted March 30, 2023 Share Posted March 30, 2023 When I got this flat, I was offered a flat in a 'Retirement Community'. I invited the clerk outside to discuss matters. He declined, and the topic was dropped before he was. When I moved in here, I had some furniture delivered, and one of the guys said 'I hope you never die here'. 'Why ?' I enquired, touched by this concern for my well-being. 'They'd never get a bl*-*dy coffin down these stairs !' came the reply. Ah, Norfolk - love it ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Helmke Posted March 31, 2023 Share Posted March 31, 2023 I have a lot of older work stored on CDs but in the last year or so I’ve gone through most of it and what is still important, to me at least, I copied to a thumb drive and an ssd drive. I’ve started to notice that cd drives are less common on new laptops but I keep some older ones around that have them partly for that reason. One thing I’m not throwing away is negatives. Rick H. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodeo_joe1 Posted April 4, 2023 Share Posted April 4, 2023 (edited) Burnable CDs/DVDs are light sensitive - that's how they work. So if you expose them to strong light after burning they'll deteriorate and become unreadable quite quickly. Conversely, keep them in the dark and they'll last 'indefinitely'. I (stupidly with hindsight) kept a few CD and DVD data disks just lying about on a desk in full window light. Within a couple of years they became unreadable. Luckily nothing I hadn't got backed-up elsewhere was on them. Lesson learned: CDs and DVDs got stored in a dark place from then on. Edited April 4, 2023 by rodeo_joe1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodeo_joe1 Posted April 4, 2023 Share Posted April 4, 2023 On 3/29/2023 at 3:32 PM, mikemorrellNL said: I suppose I could buy and connect an external one but this doesn't seem worth the investment. I don't think you're looking in the right place then Mike. A few months back I picked up a no-brand (made in China obviously) USB connected external DVD/CD reader/writer for £2 at a boot fair. It was boxed and bagged and looked like it had never been used. And just a couple of weeks ago I found a SATA interface internal desktop multi-spin drive in a computer shop rummage bin for 5 quid. Works perfectly. It actually reads and writes quicker and more accurately than one I paid full price for. Some makers still supply their software on a CD, packed along with whatever hardware item. How quaint! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samstevens Posted April 4, 2023 Share Posted April 4, 2023 (edited) 4 hours ago, Normanski said: What tickles me is most of the sad fooks who backup their photos to (whatever medium) are shite photographers Most likely, they’re not doing it for you ... Edited April 4, 2023 by William Michael Gorrection of a typo affecting comprehension 1 "You talkin' to me?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paddler4 Posted April 4, 2023 Share Posted April 4, 2023 2 hours ago, Normanski said: What tickles me is most of the sad fooks who backup their photos to (whatever medium) are shite photographers And those who are dumb enough not to back up their data are good photographers? Damn, I always wondered why I wasn't better at this. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PapaTango Posted April 4, 2023 Share Posted April 4, 2023 I moved past the traditional CD storage when I stopped duplicating music disks for transport in the car. Ahhh, the good old days of copying floppies with the buzz-brrr-hmmgrr of the head flying around--then forever burning a CD. Almost all of my program CD's from the early 2000s have come to rot. From very good, to the purported best in the world, they are all getting eaten up. A few months back, I must have thrown out 50+ program disks (SPSS, Visio, DreamWeaver, early PS & Acrobat, AutoCAD, ArcGIS, and many more--plus MS Windows 3.1 through XP. This is not to say that they are lost (no comment about usefulness) but now in a renewable digital format. Some stuff is DVD. Other stuff is some kind of SSD/USB Drive. AND EVERY DIGITAL FILE THAT I HAVE CREATED FOR THE PAST 30 YEARS now resides on an archival WD WDBWLG0200HBK 20TB Elements Desktop External Hard Drive and on Amazon S3 Glacial Storage. Music? It hurt me deeply to throw out 60+ OEM and dup music CDs a week ago due to rot--from age and heat. Some I had not transferred. The schema today copies to USB stick or phone. The car gets it. My stuff may be trivial, but it means something to me and a few friends. Say, has anyone noticed a giant sour toad hopping around? 🤠 1 "I See Things..." The FotoFora Community Experience [Link] A new community for creative photographers. Come join us! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanKlein Posted April 4, 2023 Share Posted April 4, 2023 10 hours ago, rodeo_joe1 said: Burnable CDs/DVDs are light sensitive - that's how they work. So if you expose them to strong light after burning they'll deteriorate and become unreadable quite quickly. Conversely, keep them in the dark and they'll last 'indefinitely'. I (stupidly with hindsight) kept a few CD and DVD data disks just lying about on a desk in full window light. Within a couple of years they became unreadable. Luckily nothing I hadn't got backed-up elsewhere was on them. Lesson learned: CDs and DVDs got stored in a dark place from then on. Joe, I've kept mine in fairly dark areas but I have lost a few anyway. Flickr gallery: https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanklein2000/albums Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodeo_joe1 Posted April 5, 2023 Share Posted April 5, 2023 (edited) 10 hours ago, AlanKlein said: Joe, I've kept mine in fairly dark areas but I have lost a few anyway. The ones to go first of mine were cheap off-brand CDs that cost maybe 8 quid for 50. The Kodak 'gold' CDs that cost about twice the price have all lasted well. Incidentally I stopped buying music on the Deutsche Grammophon label years ago when I discovered several of their factory-made CDs had become, first jittery and later unplayable, just a couple of years after being bought. They might have revised their manufacturing methods since, but I thought for a premium-price label that was pretty shoddy. OTOH the few vinyls I have of theirs still play as well as when new - which is to say as crackly and noisily as can be expected from a needle in a wavy groove. Edited April 5, 2023 by rodeo_joe1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanKlein Posted April 5, 2023 Share Posted April 5, 2023 2 hours ago, rodeo_joe1 said: The ones to go first of mine were cheap off-brand CDs that cost maybe 8 quid for 50. The Kodak 'gold' CDs that cost about twice the price have all lasted well. Incidentally I stopped buying music on the Deutsche Grammophon label years ago when I discovered several of their factory-made CDs had become, first jittery and later unplayable, just a couple of years after being bought. They might have revised their manufacturing methods since, but I thought for a premium-price label that was pretty shoddy. OTOH the few vinyls I have of theirs still play as well as when new - which is to say as crackly and noisily as can be expected from a needle in a wavy groove. I've had so-called gold archival DVD's go on me. I forget which brand though. Flickr gallery: https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanklein2000/albums Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDMvW Posted April 5, 2023 Share Posted April 5, 2023 20 hours ago, Normanski said: What tickles me is most of the sad fooks who backup their photos to (whatever medium) are shite photographers Well, those who can, do, those who can't push a lot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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