Best Brand CD/DVD for archival backups?

[Cowgirl]

Howdy!

After looking through some of my 1-2 year old cd's of my digital files, I've noticed that some of them are already losing their quality. They are faded with a bluish color, fuzzy, and one or two had half of the image missing! These arn't very old, and I have taken good care with them. I have all of my disks stored in a hard case!

I've been told that Mitsui Gold is the best brand for cd's/dvd's and they are supposed to last 200-300 years.

What do you think? I want and NEED a much better disk quality! Thank goodness that I have most of my favorites on my hard drive still!

HELP! I'm just not up to date on brands and storage quality! I've also been thinking about external hard drives for backing up....What brand do you suggest?

Kathy

[Cowgirl]

Also, who do you buy them from? Best prices?
Thanks!!!!!!!

[JSPhoto]

Howdy!

After looking through some of my 1-2 year old cd's of my digital files, I've noticed that some of them are already losing their quality. They are faded with a bluish color, fuzzy, and one or two had half of the image missing! These arn't very old, and I have taken good care with them. I have all of my disks stored in a hard case!

I've been told that Mitsui Gold is the best brand for cd's/dvd's and they are supposed to last 200-300 years.

What do you think? I want and NEED a much better disk quality! Thank goodness that I have most of my favorites on my hard drive still!

HELP! I'm just not up to date on brands and storage quality! I've also been thinking about external hard drives for backing up....What brand do you suggest?

Kathy

200-300 years? maybe without data on them, or locked in a temperature/humidity controlled safe.
I have to admit I tend to be lazy with some of my old CD's, some are 5 year old cheap CD's that are scratched smeared etc. yet they can be read fine either CD/DVD I have. The only one I can't read I use Search & Recover 3 on if I need something off that one. It's a cheap program that you can get for under $40... it will even recover images from cards too if you accidently delete a card.

As for real data safety I do the following:
I have one drive I keep new photos on, when that drive gets full I copy all files to DVD's. Once the files are copied ( do not use backup!!!) the drive is pulled and a new drive installed in it's place. The newly pulled drive goes into an old safe in a closet that is fireproofed with fireproof drywall. All it cost for the safe was to pay the tow truck driver that hauled it here , The closet work was $100. Once in the safe the door is locked and it joins 5 other drives. The CD's and DVD's are put on a shelf above the safe.... over 600 CD's and DVD's.
The biggest enemies in the life of CD's and DVD's other than scratching them is LIGHT (specifically SUN) and HEAT. Staying in the closet they avoid the light except when I open the door (rare).

Do not use backup of any kind to copy photo files! Backup, no matter what kind it is compresses photos and that will ruin them. Only use COPY as it does not compress the photos.

JS

[Michael Fanelli]

Howdy!

After looking through some of my 1-2 year old cd's of my digital files, I've noticed that some of them are already losing their quality. They are faded with a bluish color, fuzzy, and one or two had half of the image missing! These arn't very old, and I have taken good care with them. I have all of my disks stored in a hard case!

First, digital images don't fade or deteriorate the way film does. The files are nothing more than a series of binary numbers, 0s and 1s. They are there or they are not. Almost always, it the file gets corrupted, you can't read it at all.

I've been told that Mitsui Gold is the best brand for cd's/dvd's and they are supposed to last 200-300 years.

A few years ago, JPL did a study of CDs for the Smithsonian. They found that the mechanical hardware itself, the CD burner, had vastly more influence on the life of the disks. Worse yet, even the same model burner from the same company varied widely.

The gold disks do tend to last a little bit longer, I used to do backups on the Kodak Gold. But as long as you stick with a major brand, not those 100 for a dime disks (!), they are all about the same.

I use hardrive backups now. Most every external drive is the same, its a commodity. Just make sure that you have more than one copy on two different (distinct hardware) drives.

[another view]

Is it the CD's themselves that are looking faded? Like Michael says, the images should either be fine or have major problems (if they even show up). I saw an article in Photo Techniques a while back where examples of images on bad CD's were shown - half the image was gone. The other half was just as good as the day it was recorded, but there's no way to fix it once this happens.

I leave it up to the experts to figure this stuff out, but what I've heard is that Mitsui Gold is probably the best disc you'll find out there. Kodak Gold was supposed to be at least as good, but haven't been made for a few years. Some burners are different than others, but burning as slow as you can is best (like 2x or 4x). It'll take awhile, but start it and let it do it's thing for 20 minutes or so. Fuji's CD's that were made in Japan were supposed to be good too, but the only ones out there now are made in Taiwan. I've got a few left of the Japan CD's so maybe I'll switch to the Mitsui - can't hurt.

When I bought my first CD burner I got a stack of 100 discs for free. Half of these were thrown out because the silver was peeling off (brand new!). The silver was so thin that you could actually see thru them - they only got used to bring images to the lab for printing, etc. I wouldn't trust anything on there for any amount of time...

[Lionheart]

I've backed up my digital images and scans to CD-R and DVD-R, and several from 5 years ago have corruptions or are unreadable. I've lost 2 GB of scans and native digital images on those disks. The brands I've used are Memorex, TDK and Verbatim. Nowadays, I keep backup copies on DVD, and on at least 2 hard drives, and one on removable hard drive. Altogether close to 300 GB of digital images on each hard drive and spread over probably at least a hundred DVDs and CD-R's . Yes, I'm a paranoid freak when it comes to my photos

[mdmc]

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/co...05-09-04.shtml
I knew I had read about this somwhere. Hope it helps.

[Lionheart]

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/co...05-09-04.shtml
I knew I had read about this somwhere. Hope it helps.

Thanks for the link, MDMC. Very useful article and link for purchasing MAM-A gold DVD-R's.
Leon

[Cowgirl]

Thanks so much everyone!

I just ordered a bunch of MAMA Gold DVDs and CD's for myself and for my customers. I can't wait to get them. I just hope that the quality will be there!

Here's what I've learned... DO NOT BUY CHEAPO DISKS FROM WALMART OR WHEREVER to save your quality photos! Spend just a little more per disk and get a higher quality. I have lost files from cd's/dvd's that are about 1 year old! The brand that I was using was Maxell CD-R Pro, Maxell DVD, Memorex DVD-RW, & DVD+R and they have been kept clean, dry, and safe in a large storage case.

Thank goodness that I still have my most of my files on hard drives -esp. my favorites and originals.

I will also be creating more dups on external drives for my favorite photos. Saving my favorites is very important for me both financially and personally - you really should have more than one type of storage, and keep them safe and in more than one location!

Kathy

[SmartWombat]

A friend of mine recommends you ignore the brand of media, and look for the manufacturer of the original disk they re-sell
He won't use anything other than Taiyo Yuden media, no matter whose name is on it (or no name).

He;s been producing music CDs and video DVDs for a few years and I think he knows what he's talking about !


Before I found this out ... I had awful problems with Memorex CDs, and noe at all with Kodak Gold.
I'm currently working through some Verbatim DVD-9 media and hating it, they seem to fail about 20%
My next online order will be for TY media