DVDs as permanant data storage

[jeffbert]

I recently read a gizmag article that shocked me; while I suspected that burned Cds & DVDs might be susceptible to data loss if exposed to certain things, I had no idea that they were inherently doomed to lose data simply by the passing of time. This gizmag article, M-DISC offers up to 1,000 years of data storage on a DVD compatible disc says that this new technology will solve that problem. But that means making new copies of all my burned discs!

[Astro Forever]

Yes, I knew that. I make sure to bring only copies of music CDs in the car, for example. So far, even after a few years of heat and cold, they all still work well!

[Bigdog]

I recently read a gizmag article that shocked me; while I suspected that burned Cds & DVDs might be susceptible to data loss if exposed to certain things, I had no idea that they were inherently doomed to lose data simply by the passing of time. This gizmag article, M-DISC offers up to 1,000 years of data storage on a DVD compatible disc says that this new technology will solve that problem. But that means making new copies of all my burned discs!

But, there's a problem. Technology always gets obsolete in a short expanse to time, meaning there will be even better solutions to this.

In fact, the Solid State Drives SSD for short, are a great long term storage medium. If you ever had a flash drive or any form of media cards , you know what SSD storage is. They rarely if ever break down ,scratch or unable for use unless you ran over them with a truck or any automobile or hammered it or even had the raw internals exposed in salt water /deep water. Essentially they are the most efficient long term storage mediums ,but with USB 2.0, they are bogged down.

The Thunderbolt format is the first step to proper ultra fast SSD usage since there are no moving parts and just take seconds to connect and have decent writing speeds, the Thunderbolt addition since it can transfer multiple GBs per second would make flash drives of high capacity possible if not cost worthy. Once the costs go down for the SSD large scale mediums and Thunderbolt add ons go down in price , you pretty much have a long term backup solution which will be extremely fast and rarely ever crash.

Ultimately , the best storage is in bacteria, cells or Crystals.

[Tetsuwan Atom]

I was aware of the 10 year thing but that doesn't necessarily have to be if i'm not in my room i always close the curtains and most of my DVD's are in a closet that is in opposite direction of sun light.

I woudn't think to much of the 10 year if you thread them carefully but that reminds me that i should buy another usb storage harddrive to store all my dvd's on and can get acces to files i want easily.

[Bigdog]

I was aware of the 10 year thing but that doesn't necessarily have to be if i'm not in my room i always close the curtains and most of my DVD's are in a closet that is in opposite direction of sun light.

I woudn't think to much of the 10 year if you thread them carefully but that reminds me that i should buy another usb storage harddrive to store all my dvd's on and can get acces to files i want easily.

I'd suggest you back them up twice, once on a HDD and on an SDD. If you can keep your HDD from falling ,perhaps have it close to the ground, then it's good. But if you want a long term medium , SDD's are worth the wait if you can unless you can afford the high prices.

[jeffbert]

I just bought 2 new 8 GB flash drives that I will use as temp backup until I burn a new DVD. My HP had some corrupted files last time I burned a disc, & I had to use the originals from the HDD as sources. So, making 2 copies should prevent this hassle.

But anyway, this thread is about the impermanence of the current burned disc technologies. I much prefer having an on-topic discussion. I wanted something NOT susceptible to erasure; hence, my use of DVDs. I create copies of my files from time to time, so that if by chance I decide I want a very old version of a file, it will be there. I much prefer saving myself extra work, & this is my way. So, when the new technology has been available for a while, and prices and performance are much improved, I will surely buy it.

[Bigdog]

I just bought 2 new 8 GB flash drives that I will use as temp backup until I burn a new DVD. My HP had some corrupted files last time I burned a disc, & I had to use the originals from the HDD as sources. So, making 2 copies should prevent this hassle.

But anyway, this thread is about the impermanence of the current burned disc technologies. I much prefer having an on-topic discussion. I wanted something NOT susceptible to erasure; hence, my use of DVDs. I create copies of my files from time to time, so that if by chance I decide I want a very old version of a file, it will be there. I much prefer saving myself extra work, & this is my way. So, when the new technology has been available for a while, and prices and performance are much improved, I will surely buy it.

Anything can be erased given the correct method.

DVD-Rs are a pretty good storage if given as a DVD-9 , but the Blu-Ray format offers more storage and there's a disc format which can hold 1 TB of storage which would be used long term . Even I love the disc formats as they take less space . The only problem I got is how easily they can get scratched which I hope can be worked around.