Time To Back Up Your Back Ups

from the digital:-it-lasts-forever-(or-maybe-just-five-years) dept

Wasn't Jack Valenti just telling us that DVDs last forever? Maybe not. As many people are now learning, digital media has a pretty rapid decay rate. The latest to discover this was a reporter who, five years ago or so, had fallen for that old (har har) "paperless office" gag that has been pulled before. He bought a CD-RW and scanned in all sorts of stuff (including photos and old articles he'd written) -- and then made the fatal mistake: he tossed out the original copies. Glad to have the filing space back, he proceeded to shove the CDs on a shelf somewhere and forget about them for years... until now. Partly out of curiosity, he pulled out these backup CDs, put them in his CD drive and discovered the wonders of Windows error messages. He begins to wonder (uh oh) what will this mean for all the CDs and DVDs he's been paying good money for over the years. It would be nice if he could back them all up, perhaps multiple times to various different storage media, but the entertainment industry isn't real keen on that idea, seeing as they're actively stomping out those who try to help you save your own digital files.
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  • identicon
    Tony, 1 Sep 2004 @ 5:06am

    CD's vs. CD-RW

    The way I understand it, writable CD's use an optically activated dye to store the 1's and 0's, a sort of psuedo-pit, which degrades over time. On the other hand, a production CD or DVD is actually "pressed", forming physical pits for the data. Technically they should never degrade.
    That's not to say they can't get scratched or warped or what-not. For those reasons back-ups should be made, but they shouldn't go bad or degrade over time.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Chomper, 1 Sep 2004 @ 7:02am

    No Subject Given

    I don't know about the guy in the article, but it's well known CD's don't last forever. Those who know make multiple backups and check them regularly. Maybe not everyday, but not every 3-5 years.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Philip, 1 Sep 2004 @ 8:44am

    No Subject Given

    How do we know how long a CD or DVD backup is suppose to last? If I check my backup today and it is OK, will it go bad tomorrow? It would be helpful if manufactures would state how long data on their media is guaranteed to last!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Hans, 1 Sep 2004 @ 8:53am

      Re: No Subject Given

      Even if manufacturers guaranteed the longevity of their media, if they failed before that time you would only get back the cost of the media. It wouldn't be worth the effort on your part, and it certainly wouldn't get your data back.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Peter F Bradshaw, 1 Sep 2004 @ 8:49am

    DVDs and CDs are not for real geeks

    Backing up to DVDs and CDs is for wimps. Real geeks, or at those with an excess of hair on their chests, backup up to 7 track magtape. That's how all my data is stored.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Thomas Hawk (profile), 1 Sep 2004 @ 8:57am

    Back Ups

    Forget about dvd, cd or (cringe) tape back up. Just toss it all on a trusty old 250 gig external hard drive.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 1 Sep 2004 @ 9:13am

      Re: Back Ups

      I'd concur, but on a 250 gig RAID drive if budget permits. Problem here is this method is still vunerable to a general mishap such as a virus.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Thomas Hawk (profile), 1 Sep 2004 @ 10:31am

        Re: Back Ups

        For my most important documents I also keep a back up on the non-networked C: drive on my work PC. I also backup these documents to an external drive that I do not keep connected to any PC. I basically synch my important documents on my home PC to this backup drive and then take it to work and synch back. This way I always have one copy at home, one copy at work and one copy on the backup drive.

        This being said, this would not be practicle for large digital libraries, mp3s, video, etc. due to size but it works well for my 35,000 .jpgs (family photos, etc.) and all of my important scanned .pdf documents.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 1 Sep 2004 @ 10:53am

    CDR lifetimes

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 1 Sep 2004 @ 10:56am

      Re: CDR lifetimes

      Sorry I hit enter before putting in any text.

      This article discusses CD lifetimes in a number of environments and factors. It talks about the dye issue.

      Also to reinforce that CD lifetimes exceed 70 years.

      I am not sure what they person did to render his disks unusable. Maybe they never worked, or maybe he was using them as coffee mug coasters.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Claudiu Andone, 2 Sep 2004 @ 6:52am

    The system! The system is breaking down!

    Well... let's not get crazy all together. Please tell that guy to clean his CD reader. That could solve the problem. You didn't specified either that after he backed up he tested the fresh written CD. I got over 100 CD written 4 years ago that are still readable. I've also heard better.

    Good luck!

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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