I've never had a recordable CD last longer than a couple years, no matter the brand. I always kept them in cool dark closets, too.* Most (but not all of them) o

I've never had a recordable CD last longer than a couple years, no matter the brand. I always kept them in cool dark closets, too.* Most (but not all of them) of them at least stay readable, but if you happen to have recorded the checksums I'd wager you wouldn't find a single one that matched after 3-5 years - I haven't. Maybe it was better with gold blanks. I don't believe I had any of them. I'd say if you have any archival data on CDs, pull them out, make sure they're still good, and back that data up somewhere else too. * With the exception of those I burned to listen to in the car. None of those lasted more than a few months.