3 ms·

This knowledge should be more widespread imo, pretty sure there are still people out there assuming CDs are like indestructible. Once I started a job and after

by stinos 10y ago

This knowledge should be more widespread imo, pretty sure there are still people out there assuming CDs are like indestructible. Once I started a job and after a couple of months I discovered there was a closet containing hundreds of CD-Rs all neatly labelled and seemingly containing things like fMRI data used in research. You should have seen the faces of colleagues and the guy responsible for the backups of their data when I told them CD-Rs where not exactly the most durable way of storing important data. (I figured this out because of the very first audio cd copies I had started to develop unexplained errors). They didn't believe me so I randomly picked a couple of discs and like the third one was completely unreadable (I/O errors on ls or so, don't remember).

mrmondo 10y ago
Gosh I remember how many IO errors occurred on those early and / or cheap CD-Rs like 'Transonic', 'TDK', 'Maxell' and all those other dreadful light green or light blue coloured Cyanine ink based coasters. I remember trying to backup my MP3 collection many, many years ago and trying to afford tens upon tens of decent quality Verbatim or similar brand discs and burning them slower than their top rated write speeds in an effort to make them as durable as possible. I remember getting my first 40x or 50x writer, that thing sounded like it was going to blow apart at any moment, I think I used to limit write speeds to a maximum of 16-24x at most. And then hard disks (or hard discs which I believe is an equality technically valid spelling) started to drop in price, ended up with a pile of those quantum fireball 850's, if you had these you'll remember having to 'tap' them on the top to help them spin up as I assume the baring fluid / grease would harden enough to prevent the drives from spinning up if they'd been powered down for more than a week or so.

by stinos 10y ago

mrmondo 10y ago

Gosh I remember how many IO errors occurred on those early and / or cheap CD-Rs like 'Transonic', 'TDK', 'Maxell' and all those other dreadful light green or light blue coloured Cyanine ink based coasters. I remember trying to backup my MP3 collection many, many years ago and trying to afford tens upon tens of decent quality Verbatim or similar brand discs and burning them slower than their top rated write speeds in an effort to make them as durable as possible. I remember getting my first 40x or 50x writer, that thing sounded like it was going to blow apart at any moment, I think I used to limit write speeds to a maximum of 16-24x at most. And then hard disks (or hard discs which I believe is an equality technically valid spelling) started to drop in price, ended up with a pile of those quantum fireball 850's, if you had these you'll remember having to 'tap' them on the top to help them spin up as I assume the baring fluid / grease would harden enough to prevent the drives from spinning up if they'd been powered down for more than a week or so.