CDs won’t last forever
I heard an interesting article on NPR that should alarm some DJs regarding their CD collections.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/08/18/340716269/how-long-do-cds-last-it-depends-but-definitely-not-forever?sc=17&f
and to think folks think they can backup data to blueray over magnetic tape
good CDs should be backed up digitally! Important data should be backed up in multiple places! everything can break these days!
Not a real concern, I’ve kept CDs since mid 80’s and the only ones that have gone bad were ones I left in cars.
In my experience, factory pressed CDs last decades if you keep them in perfect conditions, but copies and burned CDs do not last anywhere near as well, therefore I make burned backups that are disposable and make more when they start glitching.
In my experience factory pressed CDs get scratched! But I’m kinda careless and rip them all anyway.
CDs from my youth have lasted longer than my cassette tape collection and I do have a couple from the early 90s that still play without issue.
The article mentions “CD Rot.” As far as I know, only one manufacturer had a problem with disc rot. PPO.
I know some Warp Records UK pressings were done by PDO. My Aphex Twin “On” single suffered from it.
World Serpent, an industrial and experimental label, had used PDO a lot, so a lot of very expensive imports from Coil, Nurse With Wound, etc. had it. I remember buying a NWW album and opening it up in the car to find it had rot…a brand new disc.
Other than that, PDO pressed a lot of classical. That is probably why libraries are going through their collections and finding ruined discs.
I believe PDO corrected the problem, and a lot of the labels did represses with other manufacturers.
So I think the chances of disc rot are very, very slim nowadays and it shouldn’t be a problem here like the article suggests.
Retail silvers should last indefinitely, provided you do not damage them. I see a lot of people lay discs on counters and then swipe them up. That’s going to scratch them.
As for CD-Rs, they had a life span of over a hundred years when they were made properly. Now they are mass produced as cheaply as possible, and life expectancy is around 5-10 years. There were CD-Rs that were made in a specific plant in Japan that were recommended for long term archival, but I forgot the name of the plant. They showed up under various brands.
Personally, I recommend using EAC to rip and FLAC for archival. Then have two external HDDs for your music collection, and replace them every 2-3 years, and 1-2 years if you actively travel with the drives.
I totally agree. Rip to FLAC, store on multiple hard drives, at different locations, keep them off the internet, and replace them whenever they start to fail. I hope more places start doing the “buy once, download wherever” licensing. I like this way because it’s an easy way to manage rewarding purchasers with additional content such as remix kits.