Is this true about cds?
Gabriel Knight
I have over the years collected a good amount of adventure games that im
goint to keep for a very long time as im a collector, most of them are on
cds and dvds, is it true that cds break down and become like rotten fruit
that has been let out for too long? I thought cds lasted forever if kept in
good condition!
GK :(
Craig
Forever? Nah... but there does seem to be a difference between
commercial disks and ones you burn yourself. Lifespan can be as little
as 2 or 3 years for the latter depending on how they are handled /
stored:
http://www.enotes.com/science-fact-finder/mathematics-numbers-computers/what-lifespan-cd-rom-disc
http://www.rense.com/general52/themythofthe100year.htm
http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060618152202AAxtvjq
-craig
CJM
your CDs. The CDs themselves are famously vulnerable, especially CD-Rs - I
wouldn't trust them to last more than a couple of years.
randwill
"CJM" <cjm...@removeme-yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:6e0k8oF...@mid.individual.net...
>I would recommend you use an [external] hard disk to store images (ISOs) of
>your CDs. The CDs themselves are famously vulnerable, especially CD-Rs - I
>wouldn't trust them to last more than a couple of years.
>
>
Hard drives (external and otherwise) don't last forever either. But then,
neither will you.
Tecknomage
There is a "Expected lifespan" section in the below Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cd-r
--
======= Tecknomage =======
San Diego, CA
"The Mage Soapbox" blog at
magesoapbox.blogspot.com
CJM
"randwill" <rwilli...@triad.rr.com> wrote in message
news:PsqdnQjmpbGc_ebV...@giganews.com...
>
>
> Hard drives (external and otherwise) don't last forever either.
True. I haven't bothered with RAID 5, but I do organise my data such that
everything is backed up somewhere. Easy to do with HDDs, less so with CD's.
And under normal operation, is less likely to get damaged. [My daughter has
recently damaged a music CD-R merely putting it in a drive - needs her nails
cutting!]
> But then, neither will you.
Sadly, this is also true. If only I could buy a new body and copy my brain
across.... [sigh]
Andrew Plotkin
>
> "randwill" <rwilli...@triad.rr.com> wrote in message
> news:PsqdnQjmpbGc_ebV...@giganews.com...
>
>
> Sadly, this is also true. If only I could buy a new body and copy my brain
> across.... [sigh]
This technology was invented fifteen years ago. Unfortunately, the
Walt Disney Company suppressed it, because if you've ever seen a
Disney movie then that would be illegal copying of their intellectual
property.
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
It's a nice distinction to tell American soldiers (and Iraqis) to die in
Iraq for the sake of democracy (ignoring the question of whether it's
*working*) and then whine that "The Constitution is not a suicide pact."
Joan Hansen
Andrew Plotkin wrote:
> Here, CJM <cjm...@removeme-yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>"randwill" <rwilli...@triad.rr.com> wrote in message
>>news:PsqdnQjmpbGc_ebV...@giganews.com...
>>
>>
>>>But then, neither will you.
>>
>>Sadly, this is also true. If only I could buy a new body and copy my brain
>>across.... [sigh]
>
>
> This technology was invented fifteen years ago. Unfortunately, the
> Walt Disney Company suppressed it, because if you've ever seen a
> Disney movie then that would be illegal copying of their intellectual
> property.
>
> --Z
real cute :-)
I have cd burned disks that are 10 years old. Some just open (not in
a case) and they still work just fine.
Joan
Richie Rich
news:6e3pkjF...@mid.individual.net:
> Sadly, this is also true. If only I could buy a new body and copy my
> brain across.... [sigh]
>
You can have your body frozen in a cryogenic chamber now and when they have
the technology to give you a new body then they will thaw you out. There's
a chance they will never be able to do that but that's the risk you take.
Vince
I only wish plastic *did* biodegrade.
Vince
> "CJM" wrote in
>> Sadly, this is also true. If only I could buy a new body and copy my
>> brain across.... [sigh]
> You can have your body frozen in a cryogenic chamber now and when they
> have
> the technology to give you a new body then they will thaw you out. There's
> a chance they will never be able to do that but that's the risk you take.
How much does it cost to store you for 1000 years I wonder?
Colin B.
http://outthere.whatitcosts.com/cryogen-frozen.htm
This is claiming an up-front cost of $150k for a whole body. If they had
to wait a thousand years before they had the technology to reanimate you,
I imagine they'd go out of business or have to invest all of their profits
into something lucrative.
Personally, when I die I'll be happy to let go.
Colin
Paul
Be glad you can't live for 1,000 years. Can you imagine the PAIN of
having to re-re-re-re-re-re-re-RE-re-re-re-re-duplicate your CD/DVD's
and even what's on your HDD's.
Colin B.
Nah, after the first time it gets easier. The near-term future of storage
is going to be online. People are starting to put their entire music
collections onto their computer, and movies aren't far behind. From there,
duplication of an entire library is a simple background process.
Thankfully.
Colin
John Lewis
Twaddle for CD-Rs.
Only if they are left in an unfriendly environment - direct sunlight,
excessive heat or are mechanically mistreated by poor or no protection
from gritty dust..
CD-RWs are far more vulnerable and only to be recommended for
temporary storage.
And Hard-disks are the most likely of all to have the shortest
lifespan even in benign environment.
John Lewis
John Lewis
Great idea. Let somebody else's server crash with inadequate backup.
Yeah, store it in the cloud, and maybe pay somebody else for the
privilege.... You do know that clouds frequently have lightning
strikes and also have about 20 minutes life before re-forming? Try
getting your archive back from the cloud in 10 years time.............
John Lewis
>Thankfully.
>
>Colin
Colin B.
You misunderstand me.
My data is online at home. I've got a nice little storage farm holding
all of my music (well, the records aren't all copied yet) and pictures.
It's set up as a RAID array, so I can withstand single-disk failures.
Snapshots are taken regularly, so I have static backups. Over the years,
I've swapped disks and controllers over the years to update the technology.
No explicit re-copying required.
For irreplacable stuff, I burn copies to DVD and store 'em
offsite (say, at my sister's house) in addition to the online copy. I
assume those will die in ten years or so.
The key is that the primary medium is no longer a disk, or the
disks--it's the generic online storage, and I can swap it for other, newer
storage as technology advances, transparently. Disks, CDs, CDRs, DVDs,
floppies, all (a) become obsolete, and (b) die. Abstracting data storage
away from the physical layer is the key to long-term storage.
And hey--maybe remote hosting is a good failsafe--encrypt your data, and
dump it onto google or wherever--but don't trust them to be the only
repository.
That's what I meant by online storage--and the abstraction from the
physical hardware is the one thing that the 'cloud computing' pundits
have got right.
Colin
Matt v3.3
> My data is online at home. I've got a nice little storage farm
> holding all of my music (well, the records aren't all copied yet)
> and pictures.
Just out of curiosity, is your music ripped or are we talking disc
images? And if ripped what bitrate do you prefer? As you probably
know, unless you go with lossless the music is not up to the same
quality as the original CDs (~1400 kbps) - so not a true backup in
that sense.
(Er, when you say records, do you mean vinyl?)
Personally I've only bothered ripping one or two CDs in lossless
because it takes up too much HD space to be worth it. :) (With the
more orchestral music I can really tell the difference though ...)
--
};> Matt v3.3 <:{
Colin B.
> Colin B. typed:
>> My data is online at home. I've got a nice little storage farm
>> holding all of my music (well, the records aren't all copied yet)
>> and pictures.
>
> Just out of curiosity, is your music ripped or are we talking disc
> images? And if ripped what bitrate do you prefer? As you probably
> know, unless you go with lossless the music is not up to the same
> quality as the original CDs (~1400 kbps) - so not a true backup in
> that sense.
>
> (Er, when you say records, do you mean vinyl?)
Yep. The big black disks. I've just got my in-laws collection of 78s,
so I'll need to get a new cartridge for the spare turntable. I've also
got a pile of cassettes that I'm grinding through.
> Personally I've only bothered ripping one or two CDs in lossless
> because it takes up too much HD space to be worth it. :) (With the
> more orchestral music I can really tell the difference though ...)
All of my CDs have been ripped to FLAC (archival), and then dumped to
mp3 at 320kbps variable rate encoding. I can hear the difference in
modest headphones, or on the stereo if I sit down and pay attention.
It's pretty good, though.
FWIW, FLAC compresses (losslessly) to about 55-60% of the original size.
Most CDs come down to about 280MB as a result, so 10GB will hold about 36
albums. I managed to squish our CDs onto about 250GB. 500GB drives are
selling for $80 these days, so why not?
The two tricks are getting the data accurately ripped, and then getting
the metadata correct. Exact Audio Copy (EAC) is great for the former,
and then I used Quintessential Media player with Gracenote to get the
metadata. Oh yeah--and lots of proofreading! I'd guess that I hand-edited
data for 80% of the albums I ripped.
But the data is there, and the effort is done. Upgrading will never be as
big of a chore.
Colin