"We were surprised to see that the lifetime of discs, some of which were designed to last for centuries, actually rarely lasted longer than five to 10 years," said physicist Franck Laloe.

"In the most severe cases, which were happily quite rare, the data on some discs lasted just one year," he said."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/pro...k_online/8711747.stm

Oh crap, I guess the only thing safe is to put all your data on stone tablets. Not exactly fast but very secure.

You mean you don't automatically load them on to your 1.5TB external hard drive when you get them home from the store. Then you can play the CDs on your IPhone 3GS.

Rich
DRSS

I guess I'll need to replace all my mark Sullivan video's soon
Steve

"Home from the store" ???
I haven't bought a recording in a store for years, mostly I get music on Amazon now.

Download it, burn it to a CD and a backup CD, save it to 3 hard drives one of them only plugged in to back up stuff, then disconnected.
Put it on my MP3 player at high bit rate and on my girls MP3 at 128kps.

Then I feel quite confident I won't loose it.

Actually, according to Kim Komando (the self-proclaimed digital goddess) a thumb or flash drive is the safest way to retain data.

Amusing ... I have MANY CD's which are 15+ years old and still retain the original recording quality. Guess the music industry needs to sell more stuff so ...

Same here, I have several CDs made on the very first home CD burner, they still work fine.
I also have a few messed up corrupted flash drives.

There are two kinds of DVDs. One has the information physically pressed into the disc like the grooves on a vinyl record. Instead of a groove, there are little pits of varying depth and length. These never lose the data because it's physical. The kind you buy at the store has a dye on it that the laser burns away to make the data. There are no pits. This dye will fade after a long period of time, usually about five years. When it fades, your data is either too weak for the laser to read much of it or is gone entirely. The solution is to burn new discs every three years while keeping the previous set shielded from sunlight and florescent light.

And really cheap nasty CDs don't have the edges sealed, they are open to the atmosphere getting into the silvered layer and corroding it.

A difference to, I have heard is the coating used. Gold or aluminum.
Ever notice the HUGE price difference.