In article ,
lid says...

On Thu, 30 Nov 2017 23:42:05 -0400, pjp
wrote:

In article , rednoise9
says...

On 30 Nov 2017, "Mayayana" wrote in
alt.windows7.general:

"NY" wrote

| I've had more CD/DVD discs go bad (unreadable) on me than I have
| hard discs.

I'm surprised that so many people say that. I've
*never* tried an old CD/DVD that I couldn't read. Last
week I was backing up email to a database, going
back 10 years. All the disks were fine.

Me, too. I have hundreds of CDRs and DVDRs and I could probably count
on one hand the number of them that have gone bad... and usually that's
because of physical damaged caused by me. I'm sure I've had
proportionally more hard disks go bad.

I've got 1000's of cds and dvds going back more than a decade now.
Everyone I've had need to "use" I've been able to read with only the
occassional disk requiring being put in a second or third reader before
it was properly seen. I ALWAYS verify burns. I trust them more than
backup drives and/or flash media. Mind you they're also properly stored.

I'm surprised to see so many people coming to the rescue of optical
media. I used optical media from somewhere around 1998 to 2004, give or
take a year, and back then I didn't know of anyone who didn't have a
stack of coasters that they didn't know what to do with. Some people
made actual drink coasters, others used the back-side of the disc as a
clock face, things like that. I have memories of buying 50-pack spindles
and being happy to get more than 30 good burns. So my impression of
optical media is very poor, but maybe it's just a case of me getting out
before the industry had matured.

Even if true, there's no way I'm going back. A flash drive the size of
my thumb nail can contain the equivalent of 16 4GB DVDs or 100 650MB
CDRs, and I can carry the flash drive anywhere and use them anywhere. I
can't say the same about optical media, even if it has somehow emerged
as a stable medium in recent years.

As for the media types I trust most, it's hard drives, hands down. Flash
drives are a close second and optical media don't even make the list.


One sure trueism is that the larger the storage medium then the more is
lost when said medium fails. Least with optical you can often retrieve a
lot of it where-as with flashdrives and hard disks it tends to be an all
or nothing affair with limited number of attempts. Optical usually are
4.5 Gb which is a lot less to loose than my 3 Tb drives but I trust the
optical more. Mond you I don't use the disks every day, 99.5% are
burned/verified and then placed in storage. I keep copies of it all that
I require also on an accessible hard disk, e.g. music, movies etc. etc.

I do burn the occssional toaster but not nearly as many as days past.