From: "Mark Roberts" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Jostein wrote:
Will there be any CD-R readers to go round in 80 years from now?
That will probably be determined by things like these gold archival
disks: If enough people and institutions use these disks or
something
like them for long-term storage, then there will be a market for
equipment to read them.
I think you're right.
I also think it will depend on the amount of data produced. If it
levels out, long life CDs will continue to be a very viable
alternative, but if the demand for storage space continues to rise,
the CDs will be soon be awkward to use. This is in fact one major
worry where I work, where we anticipate to convert to an 100%
electronic archive system in forseeable future. At the current rate of
document flow, such an archive would accumulate more than one TeraByte
per year. That's one big bunch of CDs :-)
But this has more to do with the convenience of the format than it's
longevity, I know...
CDs or DVDs might be the best of the available choices. Btw, the time
horizon for long-term storage in my agency is 100 years plus.
Jostein
