INDEPENDENT -- After finding 60 year old photographic treasures in a family attic, I'm hesitant to trust my digital photo albums to a digital safe-keeping. After all, has anyone ever opened a 60-year old GIF? It costs pennies to use CD-Rs as a storage medium but I'm worried about them because I've see students cut bad copies every week. Some of my CDs get scuffed. Others were stored in direct sunlight and were toasted within a year. It's a scientific fact, extending from the way CDs are made. When Nero burns my CDs, my laptop "burns" dye on the disc. The dye becomes dark, to represent a "1" while a "0" will be left blank so that if the dye fades, there's no difference. Enter sunlight and everything blanches out into a long string of nothing to the playback laser.
Some of the popular CD-R brands claim over-the-top storage resiliency. I wouldn't want to be accused of failing to leave behind something for the great-great-grandchildren, so I have my paper journals, my traditional photo albums and a few binders containing written materials.
If you have to stay digital with your archive, you should use magnetic tape rated for a 30-year life. If you cannot afford DAT, then you should copy, check and re-copy onto new CDs or onto DVD. No CD-R should be above five years in age.
Michael Pollitt -- "Ever decreasing circles"
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