Oreilly Network gathered a paper from NIST (National Institue Standards and Technology) a very good source on detailed research on the longevity of Optical media in a very detailed paper (pdf) explaining the corelation between heat, humidity fluxuations to error and data loss over many types of optical media. Findings of the research can be viewed here with Adobe acrobat plug-in and or downloaded at
http://www.itl.nist.gov/div895/gipwg/StabilityStudy.pdf I don't know how PM got its data from this supposed German "expert" if he claims to be such and how its research was conducted ( And I can assume it was not very scientific at that for sure) to come up with the proposterous conclusion that CD-R's or any other variant thereof have such a short life span of 5 years for unsed optical media!!?? There are many factors involved such as how was the optical media stored, temperature, humidity, sunlight intensity exposure, water vapor, electromagnetism (magneto optical), dust, fire. It also depands on how human hands (car keys, pens, dirty greasey fingers are a no-no) and how well or not cared media is stored and preserved in either jewel cases or plastic felt slip envelopes. (Plastic felt slip envelopes the type used in cary cd/dvd cases IMHO are slighly better becuase they fit snug in the envelopes and seals the recording side of the disks from dust and dirt.) Their obvious weakness easy to bend and easy to subject to heat, water and other weather conditions if fully exposed. Marc Sims Data Technician I Prince George's Community College >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] Saturday, March 18, 2006 >>> Just saw in the Tech Watch section of the April 2006 Popular Mechanics magazine that an IBM Germany "expert" says that burned CD-R's have a life span of only 2 - 5 years. According to the article, while manufacturers claim a 5 - 10 year shelf life for unburned media, once used, a dye is activated which significantly reduces longevity. - Bill Hatcher [EMAIL PROTECTED] - -- ---------------------------------------- To Change your email Address for this list, send the following message: CHANGE WIN-HOME your_old_address your_new_address to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Note carefully that both old and new addresses are required.
