It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
avatar
iuliand: It's not forever. CDs and DVDs have a life expectancy of approximately 10 years because they start to oxidize with time. Discs with a higher quality sealing at the edges may resist longer than that but it's a gamble. I don't know what is the situation with Blue-Ray but I suspect it's not different.
avatar
SimonG: I heard that quite often. But my oldest CDs are over 20 years old, and last time I checked them (out of curiosity) they did still work.
Are you referring to burned CDs or to professionally pressed CDs? The former have a much lower life expectancy than the latter.
avatar
spindown: Are you referring to burned CDs or to professionally pressed CDs? The former have a much lower life expectancy than the latter.
The 20 years example was professionally done. I might have an really old burned CD at my parents house. Need to check those.
I still have backup CDRs that i burned in 1996 and they still work fine. To think about it, ive never had a CDR or DVDR fail on me after X amount of years, fortunately.
avatar
Heretic777: For me, backing up on DVDR and CDR is a very hard habit to break. When its on disc, i feel completely safe from hardware failure. I cringe at the thought of having a 2Tb external filled with archived games failing in 5 or 10 years and no way to recover.
In 5 years, you will probably have bought a 50 terabyte HDD (or whatever they will be called then) for the same price you bought 2TB now, so you can make another backup of the 2TB HDD into a tiny portion of it. I think it will be easier than copying 2TB of data from CD-R or DVD-R disks into that same 50TB HDD. I recently copied a bunch of stuff from my old 300GB PATA hard drive into a 2TB drive, and gave the PATA drive a new life in my TV recording box (which still takes only PATA drives).

Also if you are so inclined and nervous (or the data is critical), you can already now keep two or more identical backup HDDs, It will be highly unlikely that they would have both gone bad by themselves, when you take them out from the cupboard and check them in 10 years.
avatar
Heretic777: For me, backing up on DVDR and CDR is a very hard habit to break. When its on disc, i feel completely safe from hardware failure. I cringe at the thought of having a 2Tb external filled with archived games failing in 5 or 10 years and no way to recover.
avatar
timppu: In 5 years, you will probably have bought a 50 terabyte HDD (or whatever they will be called then) for the same price you bought 2TB now, so you can make another backup of the 2TB HDD into a tiny portion of it. I think it will be easier than copying 2TB of data from CD-R or DVD-R disks into that same 50TB HDD. I recently copied a bunch of stuff from my old 300GB PATA hard drive into a 2TB drive, and gave the PATA drive a new life in my TV recording box (which still takes only PATA drives).

Also if you are so inclined and nervous (or the data is critical), you can already now keep two or more identical backup HDDs, It will be highly unlikely that they would have both gone bad by themselves, when you take them out from the cupboard and check them in 10 years.
Thats the best advice ive heard in a long time. Thanks.