OT: Archiving data/video/movies/photos/oral history

From: Eric Smith <eric_at_brouhaha.com>
Date: Sat Jun 3 20:57:29 2000

"Clint Wolff (VAX collector)" <vaxman_at_uswest.net> wrote:
> CDs have a limited lifetime,
> (10 years IIRC), before they degrade to the point of being unreadable.

I can't let that one pass! :-)

I have some 17-year-old CDs, and they still play just fine.

Aside from physical damage due to mishandling, the main failure mode is
oxidation of the aluminum layer, which results from oxygen leaking through
the lacquer on the label side of the disk, or the lacquer being defective.

The *shortest* projected CD (not CD-R) lifetime which I've seen in
quoted in a technical paper, assuming that the CD is manufatured properly,
kept in a reasonably controlled environment, and not physically damaged,
was 70 years. This was based on accelerated aging.

Kodak's white paper on their CD-R media documents their accelerated
aging study which leads them to project *conservatively* a 100 year
lifetime.
Received on Sat Jun 03 2000 - 20:57:29 BST