Your Burnt CD/DVD's

[Win2Win]

If you burn your own data, whether it is music, film, pictures, backups etc, recopy the disk every year. Home burnt disks are no where near as reliable as those purchased from a shop which are pressed.

If you have some wedding pics on a disk, and you go to look at them in 5 years, their is a good chance you can't access them due to normal deterioration.

So keep your backups, backed up as well.

[Vic]

I well remember my company holding all it's drawings produced in the oil fields on optical disc because they were "guaranteed" - except when we came to interogate them some time later they were virtually useless:rolleyes:

All my pictures that I value are in hard copy as well as on disc - I'd be really :pss ed if I lost them

[KC*]

I started burning discs about 10 yrs ago and noticed after a few years some discs were harder to read than others therefore I looked into it in a little more depth due to some valuable data being stored.

I found some CD-Rs are unreadable in as little as two years, because the dyes in the CD's recording layer fade, blank CD-R discs have a code that your CD writer reads to find the best writing strategy. If this isn't in the CD-writer's inbuilt software (firmware), the default may be a poor compromise. Some less scrupulous Far East companies have been using other people's codes, with deficient results. However, there is a way around this which is to find out which brands suit your writer and ensure the firmware is up to date.

While such matchmaking is useful, there's no way to assess CD-R longevity at home, all you can do is check periodically. As for whether manufacturers are guilty of using finger-in-the-air methods.........there's a lot of scientific evidence to back it up.


KC

[skunkybob]

There is a notion that if burning dvds ,use the lowest speed possible as it 'burns' deeper, dunno if its true but a few honchos on the cdr/dvdr forums 'preach' this

[KC*]

There is a notion that if burning dvds ,use the lowest speed possible as it 'burns' deeper, dunno if its true but a few honchos on the cdr/dvdr forums 'preach' this


According to this notion, 10 years ago with my trusty Yammy burning CDR's @ 2 speed should be almost perfect but they are the ones that are causing me the most grief years later, tbh using the lowest speed has always been something that sounds that it could make a difference but never really did, when I got a 48 speed burner the discs seemed to be just as reliable hence why the problem with different generations of dye (fade) seems to be the cause.

I certainly understand what you say as this notion of slower burning speed being more reliable has always been mentioned even as far back as the first 2 speed CDR burners. Proof regarding the reliability of DVD-R's may start to surface now as they are starting to age.

I'm sure in another 10 yrs time we can look back at this post and be more precise :D