Do burned CDs and DVDs have a shelf life?

The life of your recordable CDs and DVDs may vary based on the factors mentioned above. But there is another problem that can affect CDs and DVDs is a manufacturing issue that leads to a condition called CD Bronzing. This condition causes the Discs to turn Bronze and degrade/ruin the data on the disc. CD Bronzing is unpreventable on discs that have the manufacturing defect. I had the unfortunate fate of buying a whole pack of Sony DVD+R that started Bronzing a couple months later.

Burning CDs and DVDs and then safely storing them can be a hassle. Might I suggest a better alternative, to purchase a single External USB Hard drive. A USB Hard Drive can easily have files backed up to it simply by dragging files to the drive's folder. It's easy to find external hard drives with over 250gb of storage for around $100. That's the equivalent of about 50 DVDs. USB Hard drives come built into a protective casing that keeps the hard drive safe from harm. Hard drives also won't last forever, but a well made hard drive should last a very long time.

I don't know an exact end date for cd\dvd media but in my case i have dvds and cd from moret han 3 and a half year and still working great, but one of the cd have a strange black thing that looks like a worm, very weird but still working. But better to keep doing copies of important data just to avoid any problem in the future.

Most media can easily go over 10 years and in proper storage conditions much longer and some archival quality disks can do fifty years so the best bet is to re-burn your critical data such as pictures every 10 year onto new media however you find most of your back up disks are now irrelevant such as old programs and games
The main issue with the disks is oxidation which is why Archival quality disks use gold which is also unaffordable for common use.

I recall reading an article several years ago (6 to 8 years?) addressing this same question. An apparently qualified lab technician stated that a burned CD-R stored (undisturbed) in a relatively stable environment of 65F - 75F, non-condensing humidity, in the dark, in a chemically neutral (normal) environment, and under negligible mechanical pressure or stress could be expected to have a shelf life of between 70 and 100 years. There was some doubt that a burned CD-RW would have as long of a shelf life as the burned CD-R. There was no comment regarding DVDs but magnetic tape and floppy discs were both expected to have a considerably shorter life than the CD-R. I can't recall the article or publication that this information came from but it was not sourced from the internet. But...you should await confirmation from others before counting on this information.

Im a person with material engineering background. The shelf life is dictated by adhesive coating of the disc, the degradation rate of the plastic substrate, the moisture exposure condition. Hence, typical 1~5yrs.

Eg1. CD and DVD stored in a dry box will degrade faster as the adhesive layer peel off easily.

Eg2. CD and DVD with special label print or marker mark may have its coating peel off easily as it has gone through an additional heat process (which could causes peeling)

Eg3. CD and DVD which are made of poorer quality plastic substrate will lose it material (optical properties) at higher rate. This wont be visible to human eyes.

One tip: Thos Old CD that couldnt be read, can be read (for about 30mins) if they are soak in water. What i normally do is advise my friends to use detergent to "clean" the top surface. I told this solution so as to save breath explaning on the material engineering stuff.

What your friend said was true. However the shelf life of products can vary dramatically. Like your Grandma said, "You get what you pay for".

I have seen cheap CDs with the reflective layer flaking off the disks right out of the box! The last batch I bought was a Post Office brand and once again there were a few duds in that batch right out of the box. How long do you think these will remain fiathful?

Aim for a premium quality name brand if you are placing important data on them for long term storage but ten years is pushing the limits a bit. If you are looking for long term reliable storage of data, you are living dangerously. Time to rotate to a new set of media.

The burning process emulates the lands of an actual pressed optical disk by laser etching on a dye layer or similar and naturally this media will have a finite lifespan as this recording layer degrades with temperature over time. This will vary with the ambient storage conditions. Exposure to high temperatures and light will shorten that lifespan considerably. Burning disks at a low speed will achieve a more effective and therefore more stable media write. Recordable media is much more stable than Rewritable media.

Doing a Data Restore test every so often to verify the integrity of your backup is a good idea. Gives you peace of mind to know you are actually achieving something tangible and not just doing it for the psychological benefits.

I live in a very hot humid climate myself so if I were using optical recordable media, I would go with quality and renew the media at realistic intervals of say 5 years or so to be safe. When I used to back up to optical recordable media many years ago, I opted for the best and chose the Kodak brand but Verbatim is also reliable. You will have your own premium brand in your own locality. They will be the more expensive ones at double the price of the cheap crap.

But assuming you have a USB2 port on your PC and given the very low price of an external hard drive these days, would it not be far more economical and reliable to backup to one of these?

Bad press: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=pNRuLD7jEbU

Good News: http://www.mscience.com/faq53.html

Google "cd dvd lifespan" and you will get a wealth of information .... and confusion. Reading the above it appears that the dye layer degradation problem has now been solved and is no longer a concern as it was when I was using optical backup media.

Now concerns rest with the polycarbonate disk itself - physical distortion and degradation of the disk over time. I know that window glass will "flow" over time and the surface will become rippled with waves - wonder how polycarbonate stacks up?

Manufacturers will quote figures from simulated accelerated lab testing - these are not real world figures and it would be wise to err on the side of caution. And lets face it - call me a cynic, but these figures are bound to be best dressed to promote consumer marketing.

Adopt a common sense mindset and IF you are using quality media and IF you adopt sensible storgae and handling practices, you would think that ten years would be a reasonable expectation. Beyond that I would start to worry.

After 20 years your optical media will be long obsolete in any case and you will have no choice but to move with the times. Such are the growing pains of technology.

Neo.

I believe if its all mixed data there should be no real problem but with backup programs talking to some of my friends and myself we have noticed that after time the cd does not always work so my golden rule is to make master backups and at least 2

I had a Maxell DVD-R and a Memorex CD-R where I stored some MP3 recordings 4 years ago. When I played them recently, the quality had deteriorated so much. I checked if there were scratches but the discs were so shiny. So I suppose that the dye used on the discs faded somehow that some dark spots became lighter and some light spots became darker simulating "Ones" and "Zeroes". So I usually burn a disc at a lower speed than the rated speed of the disc to make the burning more intense and preserve the data longer. However if you want your data to last, flash drives are more permanent than discs since they use circuitry that open and close as current is passed through them and stays that way unless you pass another current. The downside is that flash drives are more expensive than discs.

About 2 years ago I also had the same concerns, so I did some research and this is what I was told by the various storage media makers. Unlike prerecorded cd/dvds, most recordable ones sold for consumers use a type of dye (cyanide I Believe) that is altered by the laser in your drive during the writing process. Over time this dye begins to break down and quality of data can/will be lost. Most manufactuares I spoke with recommended making copies every 5 years or less. The exceptions were the more expensive archive cd/dvd's that use a different type of dye. Kodak Gold is one example. Solid state memory (flash drives, sd cards, etc.) seem to be the best way to go. It's not bullet proof, things can still go wrong, but no scratches, it' more compact, more economical,etc.The makers I spoke with said that although it's intended use is not for long term storage,they assured me that the data should last atleast 100 years. Here's the rub, the fly in the ointment, the wrench in the works. Saving the data is only half of the problem, just ask the U.S. Navy. A Popular Science magazine article discribes the problems they had with reading schamatics aboard aircraft carriers do to the constantly changing software enviroments. When saving data, always use the most popular formats (jpeg,etc.). Also be careful of what programs you use to create the data. Certain photo editors and other programs create files that can only be opened with the same software. Did you ever try to watch a video clip and was told you need Quicktime,Flash player, etc.? I hope this information will be of some help to you.

CD made between 1992 and 1996 that were burned were expected to last 10 to 20 years under normal storage.

Between 1996 and 2000 it went up a bit to around 30 years.

From 2000 to 2005 most went up to around 40

Sinec 2006 most have a top life of around 80 years.

Now, there are specs and there are manufacturing tolerances allowed with the specs - and the type of substrat and reflective material used.

Thus even some within spec could last 10 years less if they were on the low end, and on the high end of manufacturing tolerance they could last 20 years more.

Gold backing lasts longer than silver - reason they cost more. Also, the better the material the CD is made out of - more rigid, less permenable to oxygen eating into it as well as other airborn contaminates, the longer they will last.

Kept in cool place, not high humidity, even the cheap ones will last easily 40 years.

They do accelerated testing so no one really knows how long they will last. The older photo CDs that I have are from 1992 and they still read fine.

What is more worrisome is the changing of hardware - will the CD readers made 30 years from now still read the 8 different types of CDs / DVDs now in use?

Few of my disks have survived for more than a five years and I suspect that improper storage is the problem. I don't like air conditioning, so my apartment tends to be a bit warm in the summer. CD-R/RW and DVD-R/RW disks like an environment most people prefer -- temperature in the low seventies with low to moderate humidity. It is also important to protect them from prolonged exposure to artificial light and any exposure to sunlight. If you treat them with a modest amount of care you should see ten or fifteen years of service from them.

As for duplicating your back-ups on another medium, do it. The old saying, "don't put all of your eggs in one basket," is sound advice.

I've been backing up myself since 1998 on CDs. Out of experience, only reliable (and expensive) brands withstand the test of time. Personally, I use TDK Gold media.

Obviously, avoid heat (particularly sunlight). I've read a web tip that claims that wrapping an old CD with aluminum foil for 2 minutes before using it improves its clarity. Unproven!

Yes cd and dvd have if you improper store the cd or dvd . enuff said

they do get worse over time - read errors will increase and at some stage error correction will fail to cover for you. So, for long term storage, experts suggest hard disk based backups nowadays. Obviously, if you rotate (re-burn) all your archive data on a less than five year schedule you should be okay. But I would still want to have two or even three generations of backups of anything really close to my heart.

Another thought: Some pundits have announced that BluRay may well be the last optical technology we will see - solid state and magnetic hard disks being the obvious alternatives for the moment, with a good chance of something else coming around the corner in the nick of time. I wonder what the holographic storage technology is up to at the moment ...

What I've heard from several reliable sources is that CD's are good for lots of years if cared for reasonably. However, DVD's become worthless within 4-5 years. This has led me to the conclusion that the right answer for me is to back up onto an external USB-2 hard drive, and just keep that when it's full. The main system that I backup is about 15 Gb., so a 1Tb. hard drive will hold quite a lot of full backup sets before it becomes full itself, and can be had for a little more than $100 these days.

-Roger

From what I've read in the past, I believe some experts predict discs may last up to 50 years under ideal conditions. I'm not really sure what those conditions are, but obviously keeping it in a case or protected somehow will lengthen it's life. Sunlight is bad for discs I believe.
Hope this somewhat helped.

Hi Michael

Your friend is indeed right about CD-R's and DVD-R's having a limited shelf life and it is certainly worth while making an extra backup of discs you don't want to lose.

All optical discs have a limited shelf life, even the pre-recorded original discs.

Pre-recorded original discs have been tested at extreme conditions and found that they can last about 50-100 years, which is more than enough for anyone, although when they did this test they didn't take into account things like scratches and stuff, and the average pre-recorded disc lasts probably about 10 years (wasn't CD's supposed to be the "indestructible" media? Mind you Titanic was supposed to be "unsinkable" lol!)

As for recordable media their life span is a lot shorter. The reason for this is that unlike pre-recorded media when you burn a CD/DVD in a domestic CD/DVD burner it doesn't burn holes in the disc like a professional burner does (it would be far too dangerous to allow this type of laser to be used for domestic purposes, and far too expensive). Instead if you look at your discs what you will see is a number of layers as follows:-

----------- <--- Silver Foil ----------------- <--- Paint
----------- <--- Dye ----------------- <--- Silver foil
----------- <--- Plastic Disc ----------------- <--- Dye
----------------- <--- Plastic disc

Cheap unbranded disc More expensive disc

The cheap discs offer very little protection for your data, even worse if you are the type that marks your discs with any old marker pen, instead of buying proper CD markers or printing labels and attaching them to the disc you could have corrupted your discs anyway, as the marker pen eats through the silver foil. The more expensive discs do offer slightly better protection as they have paint in the way to stop the marker getting to the silver foil, but even still I would recommend printing a paper label any day over any other method of marking the discs. By printing a paper label and adding it to the disc you are adding another layer of protection to the disc as well.

All your important data is all stored on the dye layer of the CD/DVD (nb. dual layer DVD's actually have two layers of dye). The dye is designed in such a way that when the laser hits it in "record" mode the dye changes to a darker colour (this is how it fakes the "holes" that are in a pre-recorded disc - when the colours light, the laser is reflected off the silver foil, when the colours dark the laser isn't reflected thus making 1/0 pattern 1 = reflection, 0 = no reflection and then turning it into computer data/audio data, on a RW disc this dye is slightly different where by when the laser hits it in record mode the dye is capable of changing constantly between black and translucent, note CD-R dye is never clear the different dyes all give a different colour to the back of the disc, such as blue, green and yellow).

There are of course two things that do go over time with CD/DVD-R's and these both result in data loss and disc damage.

Firstly the dye - all dyes have a limited lifetime, some can last up to 20 years, others can last 5 years, and if you want to know which discs are good and which are rubbish forget relying on branding, a lot of the discs are all made by the same company in china and just have different labels slapped on them depending on who they are making them for. Sometimes you can tell by the colour of the dye, if it is a darker colour then it is more likely to last longer, but don't bank on this one. Some of the best dye is Ritek dye, but even when you buy discs if it says uses Ritek dye be careful because not all discs do actually use Ritek dye, some just put it on to fool the customer, and how are you going to prove it wasn't Ritek dye?

You can see a picture of dye degradation at Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cdr.jpg

One of the best places I've found for discs is SVP communications (www.svp.co.uk), they are a UK based firm and really know the product that they are selling and can offer all types of helpful advice on which discs are best to buy. They also sell overprints which we will get onto in a minute.

The other problem that can damage data on a disc is the foil layer on the top. Over time foil becomes more and more brittle, especially when exposed to air, or wrote on with marker pens, etc. This is why it is always better to apply a sticky label to the top of the DVD rather than mark it with a marker pen. The sticky label adds an extra layer of protection to the disc, protecting the foil even more. Sometimes with discs all it takes is to hold the disc wrongly and you can pull the foil off the top of the disc, doing so can wipe out quite a bit of data, usually only a small amount in a CD, but quite a large amount on a DVD, even more on a dual layer DVD and loads on a Blu-Ray disc!

Of course the best way to protect this silver foil is to add paint on top of it, don't use normal paint, this is a special paint that the manufacturers add at production. Most branded discs of some sort have a name on the top such as "Sony" or "Asda", this is the paint layer that adds extra protection to that silver foil layer, in addition to this it makes it quite hard for someone to grab the disc and scratch the silver off. I've had a number of discs ruined where I've just knocked the top of them and scratched the silver, it can be something as easy as just stacking them with other CD's that catches the silver layer and destroys the disc. In addition to this you can buy overprint discs, which adds even more protection. A lot of overprint discs are cheaper than normal discs, but are actually far more better value for money. Overprints are where the printing process went wrong in the factory, say for example Company A order 3,000,000 CD-R's and they produced 3,000,000 DVD-R's instead and Company A refused the order (thus leaving them with 3,000,000 unsellable DVD's). Instead of binning them they sell them cheaper to another company and overprint them with the new company name (obviously they can't just sell them with the wrong company name on it). Luckily though by overprinting the disc they are adding an extra layer and protecting that silver foil (and also the dye) even more. Sometimes when you get overprints you can tell the extra layer as the top is quite rough. In addition to this if you add a paper label to the top of an overprinted disc you then make the disc have 3 layers before you get to the silver foil, and 4 before the dye is even touched. This makes the disc very strong, and most of these usually outlast the average disc life span.

One of the best brands I've found is TuffDisc. These discs are quite rugged and normally use Ritek dye. Also alot of TuffDisc discs are overprints, which make them even more stronger than some of the others.

Despite which disc you buy, whether it's an overprinted Tuffdisc or a cheap unbranded disc I would strongly recommend that you make two copies of all your important discs, and then renew the backups once every 5 years to ensure your data continues to survive. Possibly the easiest method for this is to either buy or build a DVD burner unit, that has a sole purpose of backing up discs, such as the Acard 1:1 disc duplicator -
http://svp.co.uk/product/acard_pre_built_1-1_dvd_cd_duplicator_(asus_nec)_nec003

This will automatically backup all your discs as and when needed. Note the above item is only available to UK and not for export, but if you live anywhere else I'm quite sure there is a similar model available.

I put some pictures onto a CD a few years back and to my horror after only about 12 months the disk was un-readable, the disk surface was still in mint condition I will add.

I know high quality brands of media such as Taiyo Yuden (I use this brand personally) and Verbatim are supposed to have an archive life of 100 years. So if you want a long archive life you may be better to use one of the brands I have just mentioned.

Like you, I always thought they had an unlimited shelf life. But when I checked some of my holiday dvd's that I had made a few years ago, some of them were unreadable both in my home dvd player and my computer. So a couple of years ago I checked all of my dvd's and found several that were now useless. So far, my cd collection seems ok. I did look on the internet for answers, and it was a very simple explanation. Cd's and Dvd's you make on your computer are different from commercial ones, as commercial ones are "pressed" a bit like vinyl records were, whereas the ones we make on our computers are "burnt" into a dye. Depending on the quality of the disks you use, the dye deteriorates over time, and eventually will make the disk unreadable. I think that most people, including myself, are tempted to buy the cheapest bargains, but I have found this is false economy; you lose your precious holiday and family videos, photos, and data, and that is it. I have been using Japanese made discs for some time now, and so far no problem with these, and they were only slightly more expensive than the cheaper ones I used previously. If you do a search on the internet for "Shelf life of Cd's and Dvd's" you will find hundreds of articles about this subject.

A really good (although technical and lengthly) discussion of the care and handling of CDs and DVDs is in the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) publication NIST 500-252.

Basically IF PROPERLY BURNED AND STORED, good quality CD-R and DVD-R has a lifespan of about 30 years before the dye inside or the reflective layers start to degrade. DVD-R and DVD+R have lives estimated in the 100 to 200 year range.

This does not mean that your disk will last that long. The environment can significantly shorten the media's life.

Surface scratches and fogging on the read face of the disk from mishandling can really shorten a disks life.

Moisture from the air and or liquid will get into the layers of a disk and react with the dye layer or reflective layer.

Heat can cause the layers to separate or accelerate oxidation of the reflective layer (if aluminum or silver) and can cause darkening of some dyes. Heat can come from direct sunlight, a car trunk, or other heat source.

The best way to avoid this is to keep your CD and DVDs in a holder or tyvek sleeve in a clean, dry environment that is around room temperature with stable humidity less then 50%. Handle them by the edges and keep them out of direct sunlight. Not so hard.

The truth is that by the time the media is useless, it will be difficult to find something to read the media with.

Like any other medium, burnable CDs vary in quality and can fail without notice. I once had one which began to turn yellow and became unreadable after three or four years. However, in ten or twelve years' experience, I have found that to be very exceptional.

The overwhelming majority of your burned CDs will still be perfectly fresh and readable in five years' time and probably ten years' time too.

The answer partly depends, also, on what type of backup you are making. If you are using CDs for routine data backups then you can safely plan on the assumption that they will not fail within the required lifetime of the backup. Of course, for backups of software CDs, then you do want the longest possible life. I'd recommend routinely making TWO backup copies, and replace them every five years.

Other than that, common sense rules! Use good-quality, brand-name discs. Use burning software with a well-established reputation. Avoid using the very fastest OR very slowest burning speeds. Keep your CDs in a cool dry place, away from direct light, and handle them with care if you have to use them (don't leave scratches or fingerprints).

In case of a well burnt, stored CD/DVD there is no reason why it were damaged

The shelf life of burned CDs and DVDs varies quite a lot depending on the original quality of the discs and also partly on luck.

First off, all CD-Rs and DVD-Rs are rated by the manufacturers as having a shelf life of 50 years. To put it nicely, this is twaddle.

A CD-R that I burned in 1999 began to rot just a few months later - from the outside in, it actually became transparent. More recently, I've noticed a random little spot of disc rot in a CD-R that I burned only three months ago. If you notice any little transparent spots in your CD/DVD media, you should back up as much data from them as possible, as soon as possible!

I made a whole computer backup in 2005 onto CD-Rs. Although they don't appear to be rotting, they gradually became unreadable and are now completely useless - a huge shame as there was some data on them that I never restored to my computer and is now lost.

ALWAYS use good quality, brand-name CDs or DVDs. I have always had good success with TDK Gold and Verbatim. The darker the dye colour on the bottom, the longer the shelf life - unfortunately with the rise of fast CD and DVD burners, the dyes used by manufacturers have become much weaker in colour to facilitate high-speed burns.

If you want to keep the data on your discs, don't burn them at the drive's maximum speed. For CDs, the maximum reliable speed is 8x, and for DVDs you can probably go to 4x. Don't burn faster unless you absolutely have to.

CD-RWs and DVD-RWs are not an appropriate choice for long-term data storage; these sorts of media are designed to be rewritable and therefore are more susceptible to sunlight. Speaking of sunlight, keep your discs in opaque cases and don't subject them to direct sunlight or abnormal temperatures. Also, don't use mini-CDs or mini-DVDs; they are expensive and are not very reliable.

So, what is the shelf life of CDs and DVDs? How long is a piece of string? A low quality disc could fail after days or months. A good disc could still be readable long after optical disc technology becomes discontinued! In summary:

1. Use good quality discs
2. Burn at 8x for CDs, 4x for DVDs
3. Treat discs with care
4. If your drive has trouble reading certain parts of the disc, or you notice parts of the disc becoming green or transparent, back it up straight away
5. Anything irreplaceable should not be stored on burnt discs.

Nothing lasts forever. However you can increase storage time by not using re-recordable (cd-rw) disks. The difference between them is that on disks which you can't reburn the disk itself is altered by the laser 'drilling' a pit into the disk. This produces a series of highs (pits) and lows (no pits) which are read as ones and zeros in a digital player. On re-recordable disks the laser creates a polarised surface mark which fools the player into reading it as a pit. In that way the disk can be recorded over by re-polarizing the surface marks. Obviously, where the actual structure of the disk has been altered (cd-r)you are going to have a longer shelf life than one where only the surface has been changed (cd-rw).
However if you do have important data stored on a re-recordable disk then tests have shown that keeping them stored in the dark extends their life. But even then it will deteriorate over time.