How Long Does A CD-R Last?

esobofh asks: "I would estimate it's been about four to five years now that making your own CD's and burning CD's in general has been a commonplace thing. I'm finding now, however, that CD-R disks that I purchased a few years ago, are completely unreadable now. Data and Audio. I'm listening to a backup of a Pink Floyd disk I created less than a year ago, and there is now a very intrusive static that wasn't present a month ago. The CD is in perfect shape, without scratches. Is anyone else noticing this with their personal CD-R collections? I'm finding it's especially affecting my KAO and ArtMedia disks, whereas my Sony, HP, Memorex and others seem to be fine. Any idea if certain hardware - DVD players, CD audio component players etc. - shorten the life of these discs? Or do I just live in some weird area of radioactivity that is killing them?"

Well...

[Tower]

I've seen similar things... Some of the Verbaitum media I started out with about three or four years ago isn't reading very well anymore (and was pretty poorly put together, too). Those and a few other silver/blues that are getting older lose a file or two, it seems... My gold/gold Ricoh and HP media is doing great (some even older stuff)... I've read stats that say the gold/golds will last five times longer than the blue/green dye discs, but they usually say 10/50 years or 20/100 years.

As for comsic rays or strange radiation... <bzzzzappp>

Different grades of disks

[Malto]

I'm not an expert in the area of recordable cd's, but I know that there are different grades of cd-r/cd-rw's. There are the cheap-o blue or green disks that aren't expected to last long and aren't rated, then there are the silver and gold disks. I think the silver disks are sopposed to last up to 100 years and am unsure of the predicted liftime of gold disks. I thought that silver disks would have a silver writing surface, but I've seen them with blue writing surface.. I guess it's just a rating type system. Now, about cd-rw's there is the aluminum which is crap and is only good for about 10 writes (I think), then there is silver, gold, and platinum. Platinum is sopposed to be good for a few thousand writes.

I'm not entirely sure about some of the information but from what I've come across that's what I've learned.

According to the CD-Recordable FAQ....

[ScottG]

According to the CD-Recordable FAQ [fadden.com], a CDR which has been written to should last at least 75 years. Strangely, the FAQ suggests that CDR's which have not been written on only have a shelf life of 5-10 years.

Note that exposure to heat or direct sunlight can greatly reduce the life of the media. You haven't been leaving those CDR's on the front seat of your car have you?

The section of the FAQ which discusses longevity can be found here [fadden.com].

Somewhat similar Slashdot article

[LKH]

You might want to take a look at this [slashdot.org]. It has some similar things in it - it also discusses how long other types of media last

Try this...

[eap]

There is a simple test to determine the lifespan of your CD-R media. Just place a disc in the microwave, and set for 50 seconds. Count the number of seconds until the sparks stop, and that number is the number of years your CDR would have lasted had you not microwaved it.

Re:Try this...

[ilkahn]

ok, so just out of morbid curiosity, did you make this up, is this an actual scientific measure of some sort? i mean, if this is accurate in any way shape or form, this has some cool points ;)

Beware CD-R's in DVD drives

[The Other White Meat]

In the manual for my DVD player, it clearly
states that CD-R's should not be used;
the output levels of the laser in the DVD
player are capable of damaging CD-R's.

If you want to test this, I would take a
music CD-R that you are willing to lose,
and put it into your DVD on continuous play.

Check it out after a few hours/days, and see
how much damage has been done.

Overall, I think the gold layer CD-R's have
better durability. Good luck finding them
these days though...

check the hardware

[tongue]

A much more likely scenario is that your hardware is at fault here. I have trouble playing my cd-r's in older equipment sometimes, especially if the disk is relatively full.

Mine last 74 minutes

[georgeha]

Unless I burned an 80 minute one, then it lasts 80 minutes.

George

Re:Try this...

[eap]

I made it up, and I have patented the procedure. Licensing starts at 3 million dollars.