Life Expectancy of Recordable CD Disks is 2 to 5 Years

Do you regularly back up your genealogy data to a writeable CD-ROM disk? Computerworld has published an interview with Kurt Gerecke, an IBM storage expert and physicist who claims burned CDs only have a two- to five-year life span.

From the article:

"Unlike pressed original CDs, burned CDs have a relatively short life span of between two to five years, depending on the quality of the CD. There are a few things you can do to extend the life of a burned CD, like keeping the disc in a cool, dark space, but not a whole lot more.

"The problem is material degradation. Optical discs commonly used for burning, such as CD-R and CD-RW, have a recording surface consisting of a layer of dye that can be modified by heat to store data. The degradation process can result in the data 'shifting' on the surface and thus becoming unreadable to the laser beam."

Gerecke recommends magnetic tapes to store pictures, videos and songs. However, he avoids any discussion of all the problems with tape.

The full article is available here.

Comments

[Sally J]

Thank you for helping to spread the word that CDs can rot. In my opinion, too few people are aware of this important fact. As an archivist, I'd like to point out that the fragility of CD storage media doesn't mean it's not worth making a CD backup. The more copies you have of any given item, the more likely it is to survive. So by all means burn backup CDs of your digital data and store them offsite in a safe deposit box, your office, or the home of a family member. Just don't expect the information to still be useable a decade from now. Perhaps the simplest solution is simply printing it out -- although I realize this takes up more space. My website has a Preservation Spotlight with links to other articles about the fragility of digital records. http://www.jacobsarchival.com (click on the "free information" tab). The Spotlight changes semi-monthly, and the current links will remain up until Jan 31st 2006.