I still have CDs and DVDs from the 90s that still work as intended. The only enemy of disks that I have found is scratches, and most of those can be worked out with automotive wax.
I still have CDs and DVDs from the 90s that still work as intended. The only enemy of disks that I have found is scratches, and most of those can be worked out with automotive wax.
Cheers & Beers, uRock
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Yeah, I suspect I may have hit a bad batch or picked a cheap/nasty brand or the like. No scratches showing on these discs and they are backups I'd opened previously many years ago so know they were usable back then but today are had it completely. Probably a pretty rare/unlucky occurence but also unfortunate that I got hit on a backup set.
I do have other dvds/cds from the same era that are still OK as well, just unlucky in this case. When I couldn't simply open the discs in my install I ran photorec over them, the 2 that failed both consistently failed at the same region on multiple attempts to access the data indicating the discs were now faulty.
I suppose if long time storage is not needed and they are only being used for easy/quick transfer of data then the possibility of dvd rot will not be any sort issue for the OP.
Edit:
I also don't use floppies for archiving as they can fail as well, probably more so than cds/dvds in my experience. By magnetic media (media is probably a poor choice of wording) I am referring to SATA hard drives only. All my older IDE hard drives that were in use in the very early 2000's are long retired as well with all data transferred over to newer SATA ones. Every so often I have to recover all data off a drive if it is starting to show bad sectors or if it is showing any sign of failure. So even hard drives are not perfect but I tend to pick up on any develloping problem much easier than with either cd/dvds or even with old magnetic floppies....everything degrades with time. Even stone erodes and gathers lichen. I've got boxes of old magnetic media from the eight bit days I'm afraid to try to access, for fear of finding out how much of them I've lost already....
It will depend on what the OPs usage is but as I read it the OP is simply using the dvds for transfers not for storage so this aspect may be a bit off the mark on my part (apologies if that is so OP, I don't mean to hijack the thread with discussion on long term storage if that is not involved here. Just mentioned the possibility IF you are also relying on such media for storage purposes as well)
Cheers, yeti.
Last edited by yetimon_64; November 20th, 2019 at 09:47 PM. Reason: Originally missed jetsam's comment quoted.
That bytes! I only back up pictures to DVD and have a tendency to multiple copies of them, as I don't do versioned backups. I also have external drives with the same data. My pictures are the only data I want to make sure never gets lost.
I don't use disks to transport data, though. It's thumb drive or SFTP.
Cheers & Beers, uRock
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
In deed, optical discs are basically assumed to be temporary storage/transfer. Since starting this thread I've also been playing with Bluetooth for copying what I need to my laptop just before heading out and it's both fast and easy. The bottom line is (I think) there are numerous ways to copy data and it kind of comes down to whatever seems most convenient at any given point in time.
For instance if I use my old netbook (Latitude 2110) I obviously wouldn't use a DVD because it has no optical drive. But then again it's mostly used for automotive work - provides a dandy screen for my endoscope and it's small enough to be convenient. It's also kind of a sacrificial lamb that I don't mind knocking around.
I've actually considered re-purposing an old laptop as a sort of NAS using something like OpenMediaVault. I just haven't had time to play with it. I would think an old Latitude E6400 with a 2.4ghz CPU and 4GB of RAM would be more than sufficient for such a purpose.
I don't have a tape drive to find out but I wonder if my box full of old Tandy cassettes are still readable? That is if the mice haven't eaten them
I was recently asked though if I still had any digital photos of my oldest grandson and found some on old 3.5" floppy discs. I had to piece together a PC using an old floppy drive to find out but they were still perfect so I was able to copy them without problem.
I suppose anything could be ok, no matter how long it's been since last accessed. Anybody really serious about archiving old 8 bit material should probably get started at their earliest convenience. The data sizes are tiny by today's standards. A really large collection from 1983 would no doubt fit on a thumb drive today. The transfer job won't get any easier, though. It can only get harder to access material with each passing year as less and less equipment survives over time.
It's an interesting topic. The computer museums out there may have some better resources for people with collections to archive...
Well, it isn't easy to Google the subject it turns out. "Data archiving," often refers to government data retention requirements... I haven't found a good resource for the family with a few boxes of floppies from the 80's to preserve.
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@Bashing_om
This is great stuff. ThanksI ran across a new one on me:
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Python has a server !
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