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There are two problems with the recording media business: - Because of cloud usage and low prices for hard drives, the usage of recording media is vanishing -

There are two problems with the recording media business: - Because of cloud usage and low prices for hard drives, the usage of recording media is vanishing - The market for CD-R, DVD-Recordables and others was always dominated by the price ... most customers just looked at the price tag, not on the quality of the media. It is really a sad thing, because TY is really one of the last quality oriented producer of recording media around. What is the advantage, I have, when I safe 10ct on the disc, but loose it after one year, because of bad quality? But there where just to few people around with such thinking (other companies already stopped producing higher priced media long ago). Edit: When I write about "quality" I don't primarily mean the trouble of buffer-underruns or wrong writes, but the problem, that many lower cost discs are prone to fail after rather short time of storage. As much I know, the TY discs not only made less troubles in writers, but also last longer as other discs. And also there are legit usages of CD-R(W)s -- I used them long time as backup media -- but without quality suppliers, it is no option any more (the size of the discs would not necessarily be a problem, since when I backup only sources, they still fit).

ytch 11y ago
The old time that - Burning disc with the fear of Buffer underrun. - sharing recording disc with friends and making new friends just because you have a CD/DVD burning device. - Researching how to bypass the protection (though somehow illegal). is passed.
- PythonicAlpha 11y ago
  Yes, but again we have the same trouble (as before the optical media era): Either you make no backups at all or when you have a rock-solid backup-solution, you must buy very expensive hardware. Of course you can do backups into the cloud ... or on hard drives -- that is today the only solution that is still not so costly for normal users. But in my opinion, a sub-optimal solution.
  - noonespecial 11y ago
    About 10 years ago, all of my family photos fit on one 8gig drive. When I retired this drive after years of use, I copied all of the pictures on this drive to a dozen CD-R's. I put both on a shelf in my bedroom closet. 10 years on, 9 of 12 CD-Rs are unreadable or have substantial data loss. The hard disk is 14 years old. Every checksum is still correct. Hard disks were the best backup medium for the average consumer back then. They still are. Now they are super easy because they are USB. Put a 2.5" 1TB external USB in your safe deposit box. Your kids will love whats on it 20 years from now.
    - PythonicAlpha 11y ago
      I agree, that hdds are still better, than the average optical media. But the reason is that the optical media are just crap today. When the CD was invented, they told us, they will hold life-long. Ok, CD-Rs/DVD-Rs are slightly different, but still it would be possible for them to be good after 40 years with still a reasonable price (I have no statistics, but I would say, that the TYs come rather near to this ideal). I did not want to go into a lengthy discussion about hdds and backup (and still don't want to). Just one thing: While some last really decades without trouble and are really great, it can well be that you have bought one that will just fail one day and than you are bust. While the price-tag of hdds is low today, it is not so low, that you would put four or five of them on your shelf just for backup (I might do in the future, but not yet now). For a good backup-strategy you should not rely on just one media (that can be destroyed by one single drop!). What also bothers me is, that currently only two or three real producers of hdds are left.
    - hga 11y ago
      Except that I'll bet you didn't use Taiyo Yuden or equivalent quality discs. I have, first one batch of Kodak Golds 15 years ago, then Taiyo Yuden, and haven't yet suffered a data loss yet. Although now that my data has gotten large enough I'm using LTO tape backup.
      - DanBC 11y ago
        Good quality discs, in tyvek sleeves, with no writing on the discs, stored in temperature and humidity and light controled environment: it's not trivial for people to achieve.
gst 11y ago
> that many lower cost discs are prone to fail after rather short time of storage If you're looking for CD-Rs that will last longer than average I suggest M-DISC, which according to the manufacturer should last up to 1000 years (compared to 7 years for regular CD-Rs): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-DISC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-DISC
- PythonicAlpha 11y ago
  Yes, looks like a good solution for archival purposes. The price-surplus is rather big -- so for many usages, I would still want my TYs.
frik 11y ago
I have my doubts with using a cloud service as single long term archival medium. Some early cloud services vanished and other lost data from some of their users. It's probably a good idea to use several different media types to archive important personal data.

ytch 11y ago

The old time that - Burning disc with the fear of Buffer underrun. - sharing recording disc with friends and making new friends just because you have a CD/DVD burning device. - Researching how to bypass the protection (though somehow illegal). is passed.

PythonicAlpha 11y ago
Yes, but again we have the same trouble (as before the optical media era): Either you make no backups at all or when you have a rock-solid backup-solution, you must buy very expensive hardware. Of course you can do backups into the cloud ... or on hard drives -- that is today the only solution that is still not so costly for normal users. But in my opinion, a sub-optimal solution.
- noonespecial 11y ago
  About 10 years ago, all of my family photos fit on one 8gig drive. When I retired this drive after years of use, I copied all of the pictures on this drive to a dozen CD-R's. I put both on a shelf in my bedroom closet. 10 years on, 9 of 12 CD-Rs are unreadable or have substantial data loss. The hard disk is 14 years old. Every checksum is still correct. Hard disks were the best backup medium for the average consumer back then. They still are. Now they are super easy because they are USB. Put a 2.5" 1TB external USB in your safe deposit box. Your kids will love whats on it 20 years from now.
  - PythonicAlpha 11y ago
    I agree, that hdds are still better, than the average optical media. But the reason is that the optical media are just crap today. When the CD was invented, they told us, they will hold life-long. Ok, CD-Rs/DVD-Rs are slightly different, but still it would be possible for them to be good after 40 years with still a reasonable price (I have no statistics, but I would say, that the TYs come rather near to this ideal). I did not want to go into a lengthy discussion about hdds and backup (and still don't want to). Just one thing: While some last really decades without trouble and are really great, it can well be that you have bought one that will just fail one day and than you are bust. While the price-tag of hdds is low today, it is not so low, that you would put four or five of them on your shelf just for backup (I might do in the future, but not yet now). For a good backup-strategy you should not rely on just one media (that can be destroyed by one single drop!). What also bothers me is, that currently only two or three real producers of hdds are left.
  - hga 11y ago
    Except that I'll bet you didn't use Taiyo Yuden or equivalent quality discs. I have, first one batch of Kodak Golds 15 years ago, then Taiyo Yuden, and haven't yet suffered a data loss yet. Although now that my data has gotten large enough I'm using LTO tape backup.
    - DanBC 11y ago
      Good quality discs, in tyvek sleeves, with no writing on the discs, stored in temperature and humidity and light controled environment: it's not trivial for people to achieve.

gst 11y ago

> that many lower cost discs are prone to fail after rather short time of storage If you're looking for CD-Rs that will last longer than average I suggest M-DISC, which according to the manufacturer should last up to 1000 years (compared to 7 years for regular CD-Rs): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-DISC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-DISC

PythonicAlpha 11y ago
Yes, looks like a good solution for archival purposes. The price-surplus is rather big -- so for many usages, I would still want my TYs.

frik 11y ago

I have my doubts with using a cloud service as single long term archival medium. Some early cloud services vanished and other lost data from some of their users. It's probably a good idea to use several different media types to archive important personal data.