Future of CDROM, DVD, etc.

[Guy Nesom]

A neighbor here who is in the business of manufacturing CDs says that
read-only discs, made after ca 1990, have an expected life of about 100 years,
based on estimates from various kinds of tests.  Those that can be written to
only once, as well as those that are "rewritable," have a life expectancy of
about 50 years.
Guy Nesom
Chapel Hill, NC


Kenelm Philip wrote:

> > But it kind of makes you wonder if there could be some unknown defect in
> > today's CDROM's which might cause an escalating loss of electronic data
> > over time
>
> There are a number of _known_ defects that have turned up in some batches
> of music CDs, which eventually result in total loss of signal. The two
> major types are 'bronze corrosion', and 'milky clouding'. Both types
> take a number of years to destroy the readability of the discs. These
> defects (so far) have affected only a small proportion of the total
> production of CDs--but they should serve as a warning that CDs are not
> necessarily reliable longterm data storage media in all cases.
>
>                                                         Ken Philip
> fnkwp at uaf.edu