Article on data rot on CD's

From: Teo Zenios <teoz_at_neo.rr.com>
Date: Wed Jul 28 11:40:37 2004

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe R." <rigdonj_at_cfl.rr.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 2004 12:11 PM
Subject: Re: Article on data rot on CD's


> At 09:35 AM 7/28/04 -0400, you wrote:
> >On Tuesday, July 27, 2004, at 11:57 AM, McFadden, Mike wrote:
> >
> >> I saw this today on USA today website. I've been scanning 50 year old
> >> slides to CD's and I still have my older PDP-11 data backed up as paper
> >> listings and now on CD's.
> >
> >This is the paradox of digital archival: while the data can be copied
> >indefinitely without loss of quality, the life expectancy of the
> >storage medium is nowhere near traditional media. Cheap recordable
> >compact discs are notorious for their short life expectancy,
>
>
> The problem is that AFIK no one has found ANY CD disks that are
> reliable. Several people that have been interviewed in national
> publications explictly pointed out that they bought top quality disks but
> they were still unreliable. In fact, it didn't appear that there was much
> difference between the cheap ones and the expensive ones.
>
> Joe
>
>
>
>
> and I
> >would urge caution in anyone relying on them to save important data.
> >
> >Kirill
> >
> >
>

I would imagine that the CD itself is not the same as what was made 10 years
ago. Anything that used to cost $8.00 a disc and can now be purchased for
$0.20 a disc is most likely made by a different process and uses a different
phase change dye.
Received on Wed Jul 28 2004 - 11:40:37 BST