Optical Media: This Too Shall Pass Away

[Timothy Huber]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/10/homemade-dvds-going-going-gone/' target='_blank'>http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2008...ing-going-gone/</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"Jeez Louise. A conference organizer asked if I could put together a DVD loop of my funniest Web videos, to play in the registration area while attendees stand in line. No problem, I thought: I&rsquo;ve got all of the original iMovie projects backed up on DVD, in clear cases, neatly arrayed in a drawer next to my desk. (My hard drive wasn&rsquo;t big enough to hold those 50 videos a year.) Guess what? On the Mac I use for video editing, most of the DVD&rsquo;s were unreadable. They&rsquo;re less than four years old! Tried them on another machine. About half of them were readable."</em></p><p>David Pogue discovered the dirty little secret about optical media... it deteriorates over time. Even commercially pressed media may fail.&nbsp; I recently bought an out-of-print&nbsp;CD from eBay that plays primarily static.&nbsp; Fortunately, it was only a $1.&nbsp; I used to backup all my tax returns and supporting data to a CD-R.&nbsp; I pulled one out when I read this story and guess what? It's a good thing I have my 2002 return backed up elsewhere because I'm not getting it off the CD.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>

[EscapePod]

Backing up to multiple places is a good idea, but probably none are absolutely foolproof. Per most quality media manufacturers, the non-archival optical medium that seems to last the longest is DVD+R. And, of course, that depends on storage conditions -- maybe that old cigar humidor from my grandfather could be put to good use <img src="http://forums.thoughtsmedia.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif" border="0" alt="" title="Big Grin" class="inlineimg" />.

I don't know much about "archival" quality optical media, other than that I probably couldn't afford it.

[ctmagnus]

This is why I switched to external hard drives plus online backup.

[Jason Dunn]

Backing up to optical media is simply not a good idea - I only back up to hard drives. BUT...there's stuff I've produced on DVD that I'd hate to lose, like wedding videos, that I should find a plan for. Probably ripping the DVD to an ISO file is the best method for safe keeping.

Given how cheap hard drives are, backing up to optical media just doens't make sense in most cases.

[jeffd]

About 3 days ago I found my oldest cdr, it was the cdr that came with my 2x (plextor or philips, I forget. I got alot of plex drives but I think my first 2x cdrw was someone else, it was famous for being an affordable cdrw when cdrw broke free of 1x) cdrw SCSI drive. Aside from being abit noisy during initializing, it reads fine.

There is no solution that will stand the test of time. disc deteriorate, floppies lose their magnetism, hard drives has internal moving parts that can fail. I still choose dvd's for several reasons. One is cost, it is way cheaper to burn dvd's the buying hard drives. Also they are very portable, and can be read in any device with a dvd drive, no need for drivers or user permission requirements.

Two, if a dvd fails I have only lost 4 gigs of data. If a HD fails I have lost 100-300 gigs (more if you are using internal drives, I choose USB for ease of use) of data or more.

Three, recovery options, dvd's usualy dont up and die in a single day. if you get read errors you can keep trying or use another drive, eventualy youll get the data off it. When a HD dies it is usualy sudden and the only recourse is a very expensive recovery service.

[Jason Dunn]

I still choose dvd's for several reasons. One is cost, it is way cheaper to burn dvd's the buying hard drives. Also they are very portable, and can be read in any device with a dvd drive, no need for drivers or user permission requirements. Two, if a dvd fails I have only lost 4 gigs of data. If a HD fails I have lost 100-300 gigs (more if you are using internal drives, I choose USB for ease of use) of data or more.

You should definitely use what's best for you, but you're talking about DVDs as if they're the sole source of the data - which is basically what Pogue did. Not having a backup is the real problem here; using the DVD as the only place where the data is stored is asking for even more trouble than using a single hard drive. Having any piece of data in only one location is the real problem, whether that's on a DVD or on a hard drive.

Multiple hard drives all the way for me! :D