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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CD's vs. CD-RW
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.
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No Subject Given
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No Subject Given
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DVDs and CDs are not for real geeks
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Re: No Subject Given
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Back Ups
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Re: Back Ups
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Re: Back Ups
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.
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CDR lifetimes
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Re: CDR lifetimes
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.
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Re: CDR lifetimes
http://www.osta.org/technology/cdqa15.htm
CD-RW's are also supposed to last for decades, but probably not as long as CD-R's:
http://www.osta.org/technology/cdqa13.htm
I wonder if the guy tried cleaning his CD drive?
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The system! The system is breaking down!
Good luck!
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