Many of mine are 5+ years now. The only problem I have had was with a batch of store-brand discs that died withing 24 hours of recording, I got rid of those in a hurry. I don't even buy the expensive discs just name brands like Fuji or Imation. Even the audio copies I carry about in the car (why risk someone stealing the originals?) are still good despite an environment that peels the label off in a year or so.
I can not imagine any real problem with CD-R's stored in an archival manner (cool, dry, dark, stable boxes, etc.). Tapes will print though in a matter of a few years and become unreadable. In any case your CD's only have to last until the new media becomes the norm and then you will need to transfer the information to that media while you still have a CD reader available.
It is also interesting that when I have gotten a bad CD, like one checked out from the library, I have always been able to copy it to the computer hard drive and make a playable copy from there.
I think that CD-R's are far more reliable than some say. No archive method is truly permanent, they all require continued maintenance of some sort.
--
george de fockert wrote:
If you make family pictures now, to be able to show to your kids after a few years, do it on film. Or copy your CD-R's every year to a new set/ or medium. I would not be surprised if computer tapes are a more reliable archive medium than CD-R's
-- graywolf http://graywolfphoto.com
"You might as well accept people as they are, you are not going to be able to change them anyway."
