3 ms·

I haven't seen much discussion about how 20+ year-old CDs are doing. IIRC about half of my self-burned CDs have failed after about 10 years. I wonder what the s

I haven't seen much discussion about how 20+ year-old CDs are doing. IIRC about half of my self-burned CDs have failed after about 10 years. I wonder what the situation is with factory-stamped -data- CDs. (I have yet to -hear- a problem with my 30+ y.o. music CDs, but I suspect that some aren't 100%.)

wbl 9y ago
There are some albums we have lost because of the disk rot problem. If well made CDs are lasting pretty well. But remember some applications have had doubts about how well paper lasts.
- yellow_postit 9y ago
  This is why DNA storage is exciting. Barring a civilization reset catastrophe we will have a need to read DNA and improve the process for the long term future. Also in the right environment it has nice self-healing features.
  - labster 9y ago
    But what happens if that catchy pop song turns out to be truly infectious when coded into DNA? It's the end of the world as we know it.
einr 9y ago
This is anecdotal, but in my retrocomputing adventures I use a lot of factory pressed CD-ROMs from ~1993-2000 and I have yet to see one fail to read purely due to age. Burned CD's are a lot worse. How much worse depends a lot on quality and type of disc, in my experience. If you cheaped out on CD-R's by buying the no-name 50 pack spindles back in the early 00's, those will likely all be unreadable now. The fancy gold Kodaks might have survived, though. I also collect music CD's and it's getting to be a problem that there's a lot of obscure music (demos, live recordings, etc) that only exists on CD-R, and in very limited quantities. I do have rare demos by local bands etc. that have started skipping just because of the CD-R media aging.
jaclaz 9y ago
Slightly off-topic (but not much) and as a single data point, IMHO a part of the issue with old "burned" CD's is not only the CD but rather the "new" readers (and their speed). I still have a very old 1x SCSI CD drive (the kind that not many people will remember, using a caddy-cartridge for the CD) on a computer dedicated to "recover" old CD's and the success rate is much higher than on modern CD/DVD readers. I would say 9 out of 10 with the SCSI drive vs. 6/10 on a modern CD/DVD drive.
- 8bitsrule 9y ago
  Very good point.

wbl 9y ago

There are some albums we have lost because of the disk rot problem. If well made CDs are lasting pretty well. But remember some applications have had doubts about how well paper lasts.

yellow_postit 9y ago
This is why DNA storage is exciting. Barring a civilization reset catastrophe we will have a need to read DNA and improve the process for the long term future. Also in the right environment it has nice self-healing features.
- labster 9y ago
  But what happens if that catchy pop song turns out to be truly infectious when coded into DNA? It's the end of the world as we know it.

einr 9y ago

This is anecdotal, but in my retrocomputing adventures I use a lot of factory pressed CD-ROMs from ~1993-2000 and I have yet to see one fail to read purely due to age. Burned CD's are a lot worse. How much worse depends a lot on quality and type of disc, in my experience. If you cheaped out on CD-R's by buying the no-name 50 pack spindles back in the early 00's, those will likely all be unreadable now. The fancy gold Kodaks might have survived, though. I also collect music CD's and it's getting to be a problem that there's a lot of obscure music (demos, live recordings, etc) that only exists on CD-R, and in very limited quantities. I do have rare demos by local bands etc. that have started skipping just because of the CD-R media aging.

jaclaz 9y ago

Slightly off-topic (but not much) and as a single data point, IMHO a part of the issue with old "burned" CD's is not only the CD but rather the "new" readers (and their speed). I still have a very old 1x SCSI CD drive (the kind that not many people will remember, using a caddy-cartridge for the CD) on a computer dedicated to "recover" old CD's and the success rate is much higher than on modern CD/DVD readers. I would say 9 out of 10 with the SCSI drive vs. 6/10 on a modern CD/DVD drive.

8bitsrule 9y ago
Very good point.