[HN Gopher] Optical Media Durability (2020)
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Optical Media Durability (2020)
        
       Author : walterbell
       Score  : 24 points
       Date   : 2023-12-23 08:27 UTC (2 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (blog.dshr.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (blog.dshr.org)
        
       | nickt wrote:
       | I've often wondered if writing on a CD/DVD with a Sharpie had an
       | effect on the reflective layer, as I remember back in the day
       | there were special markers for writing on these disks. Like the
       | author though, I have perfectly serviceable optical media in some
       | cases over 20 years old so perhaps those pens were just another
       | attempt to sell me something I didn't know I didn't need!
        
         | FreeFull wrote:
         | DVDs have the optical layer sandwiched between two layers of
         | plastic, while a CD is only one layer of plastic with the
         | optical layer coating the other side.. So a sharpie should be
         | fine on a DVD, but might be problematic on a CD
        
       | Wowfunhappy wrote:
       | The author's most recent update, from 2023:
       | https://blog.dshr.org/2023/08/optical-media-durability-updat...
        
       | gjsman-1000 wrote:
       | I still do backups of my online storage to Blu-ray on occasion.
       | You can get 25GB, 50GB, or 100GB discs, and it's great insurance
       | in case anything happens to Google Drive or whatnot... like last
       | week...
       | 
       | Flash drives are cool too, but Blu-ray Discs will never have an
       | accidental folder deletion or any temptation to be used as more
       | than an archive...
        
         | sekh60 wrote:
         | Is your can stomach the upfront costs a tape drive is even
         | better - tape has a much better durability record, but man are
         | recent tape drives expensive.
        
       | davidjade wrote:
       | I wish someone was doing similar tracking for M-DISC Blu Ray
       | discs but perhaps they are too new to really test yet (other than
       | accelerated aging).
        
         | coder543 wrote:
         | Blu-ray M-DISC has been available since 2013, I believe. One
         | article from 2013 mentioning Blu-ray in the context of M-DISC:
         | https://www.zdnet.com/article/torture-testing-the-1000-year-...
         | 
         | So, 10 years would be a good starting point, but probably on
         | the short side of things.
        
       | cale wrote:
       | The author has had better success than I have. Earlier this year
       | I archived a couple dozen CD-R and DVD-R discs with mixed
       | results. Most remained accessible, but a few were no longer
       | readable, tested across multiple drives. In my case, the discs
       | were cheap, CompUSA branded discs. Media quality certainly
       | matters. These discs were also older than the author's,
       | approaching 20+ years.
        
         | avg_dev wrote:
         | I tried loading some of my old burned CD-Rs a few years back
         | and had very little success too. They were maybe 10-12 years
         | old at the time. It was kind of sad.
         | 
         | I had a number of burned CDs flake out on me over the years.
        
       | bjoli wrote:
       | Had anyone here used M-disc? I think this is probably the best
       | solution for me, but I feel it is a bit if painting myself into a
       | corner
        
       | arh68 wrote:
       | Is anyone doing this kind of research on SD cards?
       | 
       | I'm more interested in reads than exhausting the write cycles. I
       | wonder what the "half-life" of each bit/byte is: years?
       | centuries? And how much better are DVDs, fx.
       | 
       | I've never had a Blu-Ray fail on me, for what it's worth.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2023-12-25 23:01 UTC)