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Thread: Indestructible CD's (NOT)

  1. #11
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    Hey Mark, I was just gonna say about that tommorows world program, they showed a clip of it on TV the other night, I think its a bit of false advertising...

    Did anyone else read about how spilling beer over an audio CD can lead to bacteria growing and changing the pitch at which the music plays? was quite insteresting, some german DJ was spilling beer on his CD and then a few weeks later because of the build up of bacteria it altered the sound..

    i2c

  2. #12
    Senior Member Info Tech Geek's Avatar
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    I had left my CD case filled with CD-Rs in my car (2002 w/ no leaks) and I pulled my CD's out a couple months later to grab a couple tracks and some of the CDs had the black specks that seemed to have eaten through the material. It kind of looked like mildew or something like that. I would also like to say, these CD's did not have labels on them.

  3. #13
    AO übergeek phishphreek's Avatar
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    ITG: I have a bunch of CDs in my car. I switch them out frequently... they are all CDRs and none are in cases. I just throw them in the middle console. Besides some scratches... I've never had a problem with them. They have no labels except for the title and ar****t written with a sharpie.

    Doen't matter anyway... I can always just make a new copy.
    I went through the painstaking trouble of ripping all my CDs to my HD. Well.. there are some that I didn't do... but oh well. If my CDs fail, I make another copy. If my HD fails... I go to my "offsite backup" next door and copy them back to new HDs again.
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  4. #14
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    What about those magneto-optical drives? Last I saw about WORM drives, they were guaranteed for 50 years. Don't know about home use, haven't seen any units for that. Anybody know of a home solution using a magneto-optical drive?

    With CD-Rs being so cheap, I use them to transfer sensitive data , and then melt them down. I don't know much about using CD-RWs for it. IIRC, they use an amorphic solid that when heated to melting point, turns to liquid and doesn't reflect the laser. When rapidly cooled, it doesn't return to its solid state. Then, to make it reflective, the spot is held at melting point and the temperature is slowly backed down to resolidify the stuff. It seems this would be more secure than using a hard drive, but i don't know much about forensics on that and trying to get information off of a CD-RW that's been returned to a null state. CD-Rs depend on a photo sensitive dye, so, when the laser hits the dye, the dye goes from transparent to green (or some other color, depending on laser AFAIK). After heating or excessive exposure to sunlight, the CD-Rs undyed parts start to become less transparent, which 'degrades' the data. I don't trust melting down CD-RWs though, not sure what byproducts there will be with the funky metal being melted. I'd recommend storing data or music in a CD-RW as opposed to a CD-R as it's not susceptible to degrading because of heat or light, unless you expose it to extremely high temperatures or course =p

    I'd really like to have a magneto-optical solution for my machine as I'm not too thrilled about using tape backup or CD-Rs. If anyone knows of a home MO drive (or cheap commercial one that's not in a massive disk array), I'd very much like to learn about where I can get it.
    Is there a sum of an inifinite geometric series? Well, that all depends on what you consider a negligible amount.

  5. #15
    Senior Member RoadClosed's Avatar
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    I am actually surprised CDs are still around. The technology was released commercially in like 1979 or so and adopted as a formal standard by the infamous Matsushita Corp in 1981.

    The advantage in long term archiving is the digital nature of the technology. As long as it is copied avery few years the image is intact with no degredation of the original.
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  6. #16
    AO übergeek phishphreek's Avatar
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    Originally posted here by FlamingRain
    What about those magneto-optical drives? Last I saw about WORM drives, they were guaranteed for 50 years. Don't know about home use, haven't seen any units for that. Anybody know of a home solution using a magneto-optical drive?
    I use those at work. Those are some big suckers... The optical storage library is huge too...

    I couldn't imagine spending that kind of money on a home solution...
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  7. #17
    Senior Member RoadClosed's Avatar
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    Magneto Optical came out around 1986. It never really took off because people gravitated towerd rewritable standards that were cheap like phase-changed based madia such CD-RW, (my opinion). The issue with long term archiving isn't JUST media degradation. It is the ability to obtain technology to read it. In 50 years your Mag based archive could be useless because the ability to read the media isn't around. If the goal is only short term storage, it's ok. Any rewritable media is subject to a breakdown in the cohesiveness of the stored data in subject to external magnetic flux around the office. Of course they are built to withstand normal activity and are not easily affected under normal conditions. It's cool technology but the comparable storage relations to CD-RW and the cost accosiated with it, make it superceded in my opinion. Considering they both store about the same amount of data and have similar retention times before breakdown.
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  8. #18
    HeadShot Master N1nja Cybr1d's Avatar
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    well mp3 players are a considerable solution to the future. I have an mp3/CD player in my car...and about 5 CDs with 200+ songs in them...they're organized in folders and the mp3 player will allow me to switch from one folder to the other. I used to throw the CDs around my car before too....but now I'll just leave one in there and listen to it. With over 200 songs in it...I doubt i'll get tired of it anytime soon. Also...I keep most of my music in a separate hard drive, and on my laptop at times when I'm outside and catch a hotspot or something. I wouldn't be surprised if instead of using optical media such as CDs, or even magnetic media, we will indeed be using a more digital approach to the matter using memory chips? if they make a USB port for car stereos...you can use an USB FLASH DRIVE and use it as you would a CD...

    just a few cent

  9. #19
    AO übergeek phishphreek's Avatar
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    Considering they both store about the same amount of data and have similar retention times before breakdown.
    I find that they have about the same storage as a DVD... well, kinda. This media stores on both sides... a total of 5.2GB... so about 2.6GB on each side. We have both WORM and rewritable cartridges...

    http://www.storage.ibm.com/media/diskettes_optical/
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  10. #20
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    From my knowledge of ROM, there are a few basic classes including ROM, PROM, EPROM, and EEPROM. The kind in mp3 players is EEPROM IIRC. What kind of degradation is this subject to? I imagine magnetic fluxes in the env. would effect it just like it would effect a hard drive. Anybody got numbers on the lifespan of an EEPROM chip and the data on it?

    The only problem with using this as a storage medium is that it's more expensive than the alternatives.
    Is there a sum of an inifinite geometric series? Well, that all depends on what you consider a negligible amount.

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