Lifespan for CD-Rs Around Two Years

You know all those music CDs you burned? They may not last as long as you think.

Brad King 01/11/2006

19 Comments

For anyone who's spent an inordinate amount of time burning music and photos CDs, here is a disturbing story from the IDG News Service. Turns out those CD-Rs and CD-RW that were supposed to last a lifetime...may only accomplish that if you live for two years.

"Unlike pressed original CDs, burned CDs have a relatively short life span of between two to five years, depending on the quality of the CD," [Kurt Gerecke, a physicist and storage expert at IBM Deutschland] says. "There are a few things you can do to extend the life of a burned CD, like keeping the disc in a cool, dark space, but not a whole lot more."

That magnetic tape -- the kind I used on my Commodore Pet -- is probably the best alternative, according to Gerecke.

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Guest (John)

2223 Days Ago
01/12/2006

CD life

The third time I read my CD on the 52x drive on which it had been written it exploded. Not even two years.

Guest (Scott)

2223 Days Ago
01/12/2006

DVD lifespan

Recently I was told that writeable archival quality DVD media has a lifespan of 100 years. Is there similar media for CDs?

Guest (Sensei)

2223 Days Ago
01/12/2006

Why bother w/CDs

w/iPod & other such devices, why even bother burning CDs - better to buy an external storage device and create a digital library that you can then create playlists to and then play anywhere...

Guest (Rene)

2216 Days Ago
01/19/2006

I've got CDs burnt in 98 that still work fine

I burnt a bunch of CDs in 1998 and all the ones I have tried still work fine. 8 years and still going strong.

Guest (richard)

2223 Days Ago
01/12/2006

even the pressed ones bought orginal don't last very long. just touching them seems to harm them and they "skip" in the player and "hangup". i use a cleaner and restore machine to fix them. But oh well , I have cassette tapes that still work that are older than my kids and underwear.!!!

Guest (Jim Demers)

2223 Days Ago
01/12/2006

CD-R with long lifespan

Kodak's Photo CD discs were designed with this problem in mind. They are built specifically for long life, and based on their lab tests, Kodak claims a 100-year lifetime.

Should be good enough... 100 years from now, reading a CD will be about as easy as reading a 5-1/4 inch floppy disk.

Guest (Just Jim)

2223 Days Ago
01/12/2006

ALTERNATIVE

Get a large Thumb drive they last up to 10 years.JJ

Guest (mazKrem)

2222 Days Ago
01/13/2006

really now

has the drive you speak of even existed that long? How, pray tell, can you make such a claim?

Guest (David)

2222 Days Ago
01/13/2006

long lasting

I've got some CDRs that have lasted 5+ years, and I have some that became discolored and unreadable in a year. It's all about the quality. You get what you pay for.

Guest (Cody)

2222 Days Ago
01/13/2006

life span of a CD-R

I have tons of cd-r that have lasted well over two years

Guest (Luciano)

2221 Days Ago
01/14/2006

CD-R lifespan shorten because...

I have a collection of CD-Rs dating back to '93 and they still sound terrific. Why? Quality and care. If people continue buying cheap, then manufactures will continue making them (cheap). Invest.

Guest (ali)

2217 Days Ago
01/18/2006

completely misleading

As evidenced by other comments, it's clear this guy at IBM doesn't fully grasp the issue. IBM hasn't been in the storage business for a few years, so I don't give this guy a lot of weight.

Sounds like 2 years is the typical low end and longer life is quite common.

Regardless, a flash drive or external hard drive are good storage mediums.

Guest (anonymous)

2217 Days Ago
01/18/2006

Rebuttal from CR-R scientist...

It all started from the newsweek article that grossly misquoted a scientist. Now his rebuttal:

http://www.cd-info.com/CDIC/Industry/news/email-280498.html

Guest (Bruce Edwards)

2216 Days Ago
01/19/2006

Good mileage with mine...

Well, I've got CD-Rs I bruned about 5 years ago that have been in my car ever since then experinceing socrching Summers and very cold winters and they seem fine so far!

Guest (Mike)

2216 Days Ago
01/19/2006

Mine too

Listen, this whole thing is insane. I have dozens of burned cd's from different brands(both good and bad), that have been horribly misused, scratched to hell, and still work! Most were done with the first cd burners..... so stfu people who think they shelf life is anywhere less than a decade for good kept cd's.

Guest (GraphicArtist2k5)

2216 Days Ago
01/19/2006

WTF Are You Talking About?

I still have CDs that I've burned about six years ago, when I bought my first computer, and they still work perfectly. I think it's all a matter of how you treat your CDs, 'cause if you handle them roughly (i.e. clean them off on your shirt in a circular motion OR bang them around so the top part of the CD is damaged) then yeah, you're gonna have a whole buttload of CDs that won't work anymore. But then again, I tend to stay the hell away from the off-brand CDRs for the simple reason that they're not made by the major companies, such as Sony, Memorex, etc.

Guest (fatpappydollaz)

2216 Days Ago
01/19/2006

CDR Lifespan

The first time you see silver medium flake off a super cheap CD-R (wow $0 after Black Friday rebate that never gets honored b/c who's going to go through that bs for a $9 cheque?) you should realize that alot of CD-R is pretty crappy. I've found, however, that many of my CD-R have lasted for more than 4-5 years. Select good media (not necessarily brand names...do some homework.) Disks with hard lacquer on top of the medium seem to hold up well. Slow burns and of course, always keep an alternate backup. Hard drive, flash, cuneiform tablets... giant stone coinage, whatever. Geez!

Guest (CDRguy)

2216 Days Ago
01/19/2006

last 300 years

Some do talk of CD-R lifespan. "Long-term applications such as backfile conversion, e-mail archiving, and storage of classified correspondence can benefit from the Archive CD-R's strict quality control and patented Phthalocyanine dye (tha-lo-cy-a-neen) formula, which offers storage life in excess of 300 years."
http://www.mam-a.com/products/gold/archive.html

I could not find CD-R lifespan info on Verbatim's site, but they say DVD life span is "estimated lifetimes of Verbatim DVD discs are over 100 years"
http://www.best16xburn.com/10.asp

Guest (Tony)

2198 Days Ago
02/06/2006

CD Lifespan not a problem

Much more than 10-15 years is questionable. CDs will go away, just like 8" floppies. Cant find machines to read those anymore. If you have CDs now, you will need to migrate that data to some new form anyway. Rewritting data every 5 years will be the norm and keep you safe.

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