Do burned CDs and DVDs have a shelf life?

Your friend is right, they will fail. But the question of when is a big unknown. I too have researched the problem and found out a lot, and also from first hand experience. There are so many factors involved. Such as, quality of the disc, speed of burn, storage enviroment. I mainly deal with DVD's but some CD's also. I remember always reading disc will last 100 years, but you no longer see that in any info. Hard drives have come down in price to where it is as cheap as buying disc and cases to put them in. I have had several video disc to become unreadable within several years. These were stored in a climate controlled space, in a closed case. But I must also mention, these were cheaper off brand disc, I no longer use such.
You can google info such as dvd rot, http://hometheater.about.com/cs/dvdlaserdisc/a/aadvdrota.htm
Home burned disc are different than factory disc, and usually home burned are more likely to fail sooner. If its something you really want to keep for the long haul, use quality disc, burn at a slower speed, and back up to a hard drive. I have had the best luck with Verbatim disc, they seem more consistant with quality than other brands, even big name brands. More cd data here>
http://www.loc.gov/preserv/studyofCDlongevity.pdf
One more thing to note, cd's and dvd are different in that the top of the cd is very sensitive to sctatches, most people think the bottom, or burn side is. On a cd, the top is a reflective cover, much like a mirror, scratch the front of a mirror and you might be able to polish the scratch out, scratch the back of a mirror, and its ruined. Also, never ever put labels on a disc, and be careful with what you use to mark them. Hope this helps. I learned the hard way.

Yes! they have a shelf life, most are 8 to10 years.

The length of time the data on user-recorded CD's & DVD's varies greatly on a number of factors, but they do indeed have a "shelf life".

Assuming you are not talking about "avoidable" damage, such as fingerprints, scratches, dust, crayons, dog-slobber, etc, to the disc surface, yes, there ARE things you might need to be concerned with regarding disc longevity:

It helps to understand how CD-R's (and by this I include CD+R's as well as DVD's) work to understand how durable they are.

NON-Recordable discs have "pits" burned into the surface of the disk that deflect the laser while it spins. Whether the laser strikes the sensor or not determines if it reads a "1" or "0".

RECORDABLE discs use heat-sensitive colored dye sandwiched between layers of the disc. When you record, the laser changes the color of the dye in place of burning "pits". When the disk is read back, the points of different color reflect the laser differently, resulting in the same effect as noted above (to determine a "1" or "0").

Since the discs are "heat sensitive", storing your discs in a warm place can cause the dye color-change to "even out", making the data difficult to read ("Extreme" heat will ruin the disc itself long before the dye is affected.) Really cheap bargain discs are more susceptible to heat damage and/or use cheaper less-durable dye. It is important to keep all your CD-R's in a cool/dry place (even blank ones) when not in use (and why it's a bad idea to leave them in your hot PC when not in use.

"Heat" issues aside, simple "time" can cause the contrast of the ink to fade. And again, the cheaper the disc, the less durable the ink may be. Over time, the difference in contrast between "bits" on the disc become more difficult to discern, making it harder and harder to read the data on them.

But even low-quality discs, well-taken care of, should last years. I have some CD's I recorded nearly a decade ago that I can still read.

"High-speed" discs have more sensitive dye, which are more susceptible to the effects I mention above. But, if you are concerned and the data is super-important, you can counter this by recording at a lower speed than the disc is capable of (50% slower or so), ensuring a more "permanent" change in the dye color. Most good recording software will let you select a recording speed before burning.

This is a topic of great interest but not many clear studies. The life expectancy of CD-R, DVD-R and DVD+R types of media can be estimated to be as little as 3 years and as great as 200. As the referenced studies noted later report, it depends on the quality of the media, the quality of the writing method, and the care and handling on the shelf after the media is written. A quick summary is that you need to buy good media, verify after writing, and keep the media in a temperature and humidity controlled place away from direct light. So, don't keep it in warm and/or damp places, don't keep it under bright lights or sunlight, and don't let it get warped or flexed. My own experience is that with some care, media should have a high likelihood of lasting 10 to 2 years or more.

For more discussion see NIST publication "Stability Comparison of Recordable Optical Discs - A Study of Error Rates in Harsh Conditions" (pub # 150481) or "How Long Can You Store CDs and DVDs and Use Them Again?" at (http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub121/sec4.html) or do some Google searches.

Gerald Wilson, OmniSoft, Inc.

YES!

Factory discs are manufactured with metal and covered with an optically clear very sturdy plastic. The metal is totally encased in the plastic so you cannot damage all of the little dots and dashes embedded in the metal. If kept scratch free they could last, well much longer than any of us. But, recordable discs have the metal coated on the back side of them unprotected. By use of a laser the information is written to the disc via a chemical process. If the metal gets scratched all of the information in the scratch could be lost. Also, the chemicals embedded between the plastic and metal will over time corrupt the path the laser uses to read the disc. So, bits and pieces of data will be lost over time (4 to 10 years) and it will progressively get worse. DVD's are more susceptible to this than CD's.

I read the first 15 responses here and none of them cite a source of information. "I read this" and "I heard that" are not reliable sources. The Council on Library and Information Sources can be a good place to start: http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub121/sec4.html

I remember shopping for DVD or CD's and looking on the case. It said that they should last 100 years. Blu-ray disks are more resistant to scratches than DVD's and CD's because of a coating that is put on the data side. So BD's I would think are even better. There are a few blu-ray burners available. The article your friend may have read is from PCworld.com. Where Kurt Gereke said that magnetic tape has 30 to 100 years lifespan and CD's and DVD's have a few years.

The onlt recognized archival storage material that is recognised is black-and-white film. It is good for at least 100 years. Any other form of starage degrades over time. CD's and DVD's have a reference aluminum layer in them that oxidizes over time. When this happens, the thing is no longer readable.

If you live in Belize, there are bacteria that eat the material in CD's causing them to delaminate. I assume the DVD's have the same material in them.

Yes, burned media does have a shelf life. Some are better than others, and some brands will last longer than others. I have had some last up to 10 years, while others don't last but a couple years. Also remember that CD's are burned with light, do not store burned media in the sunlight-It can make some CD's develop problems and it does not take long for it to happen.

CD's are great but for the same money it takes to buy a 50 pack of dvd's you can go get a thumbdrive. I saw an 8 gig at walmart for less than 40 bucks.

Not long ago it became possible to have no need for a floppy drive at all-Soon this will happen with CD's. Technically it can be done already. I will go so far as to predict that soon you will be able to purchase software on some sort of thumbdrive instead of cd's.

I think it all depends on the quality of the original recording as well as the media it was burned to.
For example, a music disc burned 10 years ago isn't going to sound as good as one burned today making play back sound like cd degredation.
I have cds burned in 1998/99 that are as good now as they were back then but a few later discs which skips and jumps because they were not recorded slow enough.
Back in the mid 1990s there was a hoo-ha about cds released that within months were going brown around the edges. We were told not to worry and keep them in the freezer as it would improve the quality of the music as well as preserve the discs from 'oxidizing' (I believe that was the reason given for it)
Well I would like to think that in the intervening years cd technology has come a long way, and despite the use and throw away society that we are now in, most cds if recorded properly will last a lot longer than their predasesors.

I recently had a burned brand-name cd of music that was probably a couple of years old, and spent some time stored in the car. A
Post-it note, which does not have a strong adhesive, got attached to the label side. When I pulled it off, it took the face and silver coating off with it, leaving only the clear plastic. I guess that implies the discs do deteriorate, although the temperature extremes in the car probably sped things up.

Of course, DVD's and CD's do have a shelf life depending on the quality. I have had perfectly working CD's fail one me one fine morning!
There is not much you can do about them failing.

Commercial CD's are pressed vs. our burned. Pressed CD's have at least 25 years shelf life because my first pressed CD's are from 1983. Pressed CD's also play on most players without problems. See this for a very learned opinion:

http://www.modern-radio.com/board/t.php?id=42466&r=23

Here is a post from this very forum from 2006:

http://forums.cnet.com/5208-10149_102-0.html?forumID=7&threadID=152618&messageID=1706897

I am always impressed with stamped CD's and DVD's. They beat the heck out of the burned ones.

I have heard that CDs have a shelf life of about 10 years. The plastic pits that make up the data is very small ( less tahn 1/4 wavelength of light). The plastic, that is actually a super liquid, slowly migrates over time. After enough time the data is not readible. Of course storage temperatures would significantly affect the plastic migration rate.

Assuming that the hugher the data density means the pits are smaller, that would mean that the shelf life would be shorter on the average. Therefore one would expect the average life of DVDs to be less than 10 years.

it's fine to be paranoid about not being able to read the media after a certain amount of time or use. this was said about diskettes, vcr tapes, etc.

if you really want to be paranoid, you have to think of more than not being able to read the media. imagine what would happen if you lost all of these cd's in one of many ways; e.g. fire, theft, flood. sure, you need backup. i advise my clients to keep onsite and offsite backup. onsite backup as welll as offsite should be kept in a fireproof, waterproof safe.

(personally i never had the discipline to do it!)

akiva in ny

Yes, writable optical disks do have a limited life, though there is no independent certification available. It appears that some media may only last 2 or 3 years, though most appear to be good for at least 15 years. There's no way to really know. Rewritable disks don't last as long as "write once" disks, and DVD media don't last as long as CD media. Some believe that DL and blue-ray are "worse", though nobody really knows. The worst thing one can ever do is BEND a disk. Adhesive labels and some kinds of marking pens aren't good, and of course heat, humidity, and scratches on either side are bad. I have had back-up disks become unreadable after 4 years, though that was quite a while ago. A number of brands offer more expensive "archival quality" disks. Some are advertised or guaranteed for 50, 75, or 100 years, though nobody really knows. There are a number of different materials and colors that are claimed to last much longer than the "cheap" ones. A gold reflective layer seems to be widely accepted for this purpose, though they're among the most expensive. Accelerated aging techniques for testing aren't known to reliably mimic age, and testing a disk can still take 2 years. Whatever technology is being tested is likely to be obsolete in 2 years. Check out this website:

http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/opticalmedialongevity.html

I have been researching a conclusive answer to this question for a while now. It seems that the key factor regarding whether or not your data burned to disc will survive depends a great deal on the manufacturing of the disc, in particular if the disc has a complete seal along the edge where the two parts form the "sandwich" that encloses the recording media. If the seal is not perfect, oxidation may occur that may render the recorded data unreadable. There are manufacturers producing "Hundred year" disc that are designed to last for many years. I believe the recording media utilized is a high percentage of gold. One of the companies is e-film, I have some of their archival DVDs that I plan to use to backup my photographic imagery. I have seen the Blu-ray disc now, once they are available in the "gold standard" I will use those instead since 25 gigs of info. will fit on each disc. The issue of archiving has not fully been addressed as urgently as I feel it should be, I have images on slides that I shot back in the seventies that look as good now as it did when I shoot it back then. I hope that I am avble to do the same with my digital imagery in years to come. If this issue isn't fully resolved, we face a future crisis in terms of historical archives stored electronically world wide. A bigger and more pressing concern is whether the software in the future will still be able to read data created thirty or more years earlier. I am VERY concerned about our digital futre.

Every form of media has a shelf life according to how you treat them. For example heat & humidity are both enemies of burned CD's & DVD's. Also you want to store them vertically. Don't lay them on top of each other, they can warp. You'll want to keep your CD's & DVD's in a cool dry place where the sun will never shine on them. Also out of experience, I highly suggest that when you are done burning a disk, take it out, put it back in and make sure it works. Because I have had several disks that did not work after I burned them. So when I needed them I had junk disks and ended up losing irreplaceable photos and music. I have also heard many people recommend that you re-burn your disks every 5 years just to be sure. Good luck!

Unfortunately, what you heard is true! While most software that you buy in a store is on a CD/DVD that has the "bumps" and holes burned into the metal, the laser in your CD or DVD burner does not have the power to burn holes in metal. Instead, blank CD's that you buy that you will "burn" yourself have a coating that reacts to laser light and produces a series of dark and light spots just in that coating. Think of the process more as laserlight-sensitive ink.

An article I read a few years ago gave the "shelf-life" of a home burned CD or DVD a five (5) year lifespan. Now the question is, is this a conservative estimate? Maybe. To be on the safe side, I would first consider the lifespan that you need. Will the information on the CD/DVD be obsolete in less than five years? If so, I would not worry about this. If you are archiving information for a longer period of time, I would suggest dating your CD/DVD collection and use CD software to copy the disc somewhere in the 4-5 year range to another disc.

Another thing to consider is this. How long will it be before technology comes up with something new to replace the CD and DVD? It might be that CD technology could go the way of the audio cassette soon and DVD would continue on. Care should always be given to whatever media you store information on, even using paper printout as a medium, to balance what the required lifespan is with what the actual media lifespan is. For critical information, I would also consider making several copies to start with as accidents can always happen and a "backup" of the data is a good idea. (I've gotten CDs mismounted in the drawer and it closed on the disc scratching it.

So, to answer your question, the life of the recordable CD/DVD last I heard was 5 years. The key is to not rely on just one copy of the media and, if you can't afford a device that has long-term retention, such as magneto-optical (100 years?), I would periodically make further copies in the future, say, every 2-4 years.

Hi Michael, your concerns are justified, not paranoia.

A few have written here saying how Gold backed dvd's are better than the silver etc... Well of course, it is commen sense, think about it.
Remember grandma's old silverware that was actually silver?
Remember how it needed constant polishing or it would turn dark, that oxidation occurs to all metals. Brass, bronze, but Gold is affected less, so it would make a better material for the reflective backing because if the backing loses its shine, then it can no longer reflect the material stored on the actual dye itself.

However my advice to you, and this is what I have done and am in the process of doing to my old 20+ year VHS tapes (which thankfully still have my precious family memories on them still!)is to back them up to flash memory.
Think about it, a 4gb flash SD memory chip, the size of a postage stamp can be had for under $10 now and prices are dropping every day.
So I advise to have 3 backups.
One on the original medium, whether it is magnetic tape, DV tape, or audio tape etc..or a cd or dvd disc.
Then make a backup on a quality brand of DVD, (4.7gb)

Then also make another backup on an SD flash chip (4gb or 8gb)or more.
If it isn't worth the extra $10 to store it on an adition SD flash chip for a 3rd backup, then obviously it isn't valuable data and something you could afford to lose.

If you want a 4th backup, then also copy it to a huge hard drive, but the reason i recommend flash before a HD is, 4gb flash chips can be stored easily, filed in a book or card storage case individually, as opposed to everything on one large hard drive which can easily go bad.

And they charge about $1495 now to retrieve your data for you from a bad HD, so no matter how valuable my family memories are, paying $1500 to get them back is NOT something I want to have to do. I'd rather pay a few bucks up front now to store on flash discs, which if one goes bad, at least everything isn't gone as in the case of one huge HD.
That is my advice, and I plan on following it myself. I suspect plenty of others are doing the same, and making flash SD prices drop so quickly! Excellent.

Also I just got a 60gb SSD (solid state disc) drive, it is internal but has a mini usb port and can be used like an external drive for under $150 and love it, speed and solid state, no moving parts to wear out!
I might start backing up more data to SSD drives as prices drop also instead of an HD as the 4th medium.
Good Luck Michael!and everyone else following my advice.
Better to be safe than sorry, no? It isn't paranoia, it's cautiousness.

There was a Dutch report a year or two back that checked the readability of CD/DVD media, and it found that some cheaper media were unreadable after less than a year. Predicting the lifetime of storage media is an unscientific business because of the different chemical makeups and the particular storage and use conditions (light, temperature, mechanical stresses) are variables that can't be universally measured, that's why the use and storage guidlines are general.
Most known brands of optical disks claim at least a 'lifetime guarantee', but don't specify what that is (although laboratory testing indicates it may well be decades, but that is probably for original non-recordable media), as well as claims about the performance. See these two opposing articles:http://computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/storage/story/0,10801,107607,00.html and http://www.osta.org/technology/cdqa13.htm

According to the book 'Preserving Digital Information' by Henry Gladney, "RW (read-write) disks are known to fail early, and should not be used for archival storage." That would pertain to professional archiving, but for the rest of us this probably indicates that you should make another backup of your backup if it is information you really can't afford to lose. And to repeat the operation every 2-5 years.

Like you I have backups from from about ten years ago that seem to work just fine and these were cheap disks from a supermarket. With the increased storage in disks now, it's probably a good idea to copy all those CDs onto a few DVDs and make copies of those.

Well Michael D,

I have some news that may ease your mind or trouble you. Where as most CDs and DVDs, like most optical media, don't really have a particular shelf life per say, recordable media can suffer from damage over time from several different elements. First of all, there is a very common and often forgotten about type of damage that can happen to this media called "Laser Rott." What is Laser Rott? Laser Rott is a condition at which the mylar backing of the CD or DVD eventually wears out or looks like it develops spotting from severe and excessive reading. The mylar backing is the surface at which the the laser light that is emitted is reflected off of and refracted by the pits in the plastic surface that makes the disc "readable." This use to be a very common issue with recordable optical media, but, has long become nowhere near as much of a severe issue these days.

One thing to keep in mind is the quality of the media and the mylar backing. Never ever use discs that are just the backing on a plastic disc, for this can be very easily damaged and is more prone to rotting out. Most discs now consist of the clear plastic discs at which the the pits are burned into, the mylar reflective surface, and a translucent or colored cover/label surface. This three layer process makes the discs a little tougher and less prone to damage and keeps rotting down to a minimal.

Now, even without reading, if you are not using good quality discs, the mylar surface can also self-distruct. No, it's not going to explode or anything, just start decomposing just like the same way that mylar ballons do. Most low or poor quality budget brand discs do this and start to self-rott and get spotting.

Moisture can also damage your discs because the mylar backing can rust and corrode just like any other metal.

One thing to remember Michael, is check your discs at least once a year, especially if there in storage. Look for spotting or anything strange. If you start to see the disc start to go bad for any reason, copy your data immediately to a new disc. Always go for quality discs. Usually Sony or Memorex discs last awhile. Always keep your discs in a cool dry place. Mosts recordable optical media can last a couple of decades or more especially if well taken care of.

Now, you don't have to store them in vacuum sealed tubes or anything like that, just make sure that they are protected and there when you need them and should not have much at all to worry about.

The pits in the discs may last forever, but the backing is what to watch out for.

Anyway, I hope this helps and gives you some insight,
Starkiller5.

about your question on self life cds and dvds you should know that in fact the have a self life but not to be worried about, unless you are gonna live for about 100 years that's the time is expected that the cds is gonna store the information, another thing to take in consider is the quality of the cd the way you store the cds and dvds humidity an other enviorement that coul efect this optical items. But on conclusion if your cds anre well store away from extrem heat and cold you won't have any problem on getting acces to your data for unless than 50 years ahead the dvds they have got more o less the same self time life.I hope that's answer you question

It's true that writable CDs and DVDs are expected to degrade over time. If you have data you want to store for a very long period of time, such as cherished family photos, archival media will buy you additional peace of mind at a pretty high cost compared to standard media. If the data is that important, don't forget to make an extra copy and store it at some other location, as far away as possible, since natural disasters can encompass a very large area.

Most people don't know that standard color photos from the pre-digital era fade rapidly, compared to black & white photos. If you've got color photos that are family heirlooms, you ought to digitize them and store them on archival disk media as a hedge. An exception is Kodachrome slide film, but you might want to digitize those too, just to make it easier to view them!

i have burned my files in cds for more than 20 years now and still readable. if i live for another 30 years (i'll be 97). according to the very first released of recordable cds, life span could be 100 years. just keep 'em away from sunlight.

ydurnas

I was one of the people who used to think that if you take good care with CDs/DVDs they could virtually last forever WRONG!!!,CDs I had purchased in the USA from legitimate and well known retailers started getting a type of corrosion on the inner foil layer causing fairly big gaps on the foil,I also experienced the phenomena of a pack of 25 blank discs...after burning audio tracks the discs were perfect for about 2 months until a particular day I noticed an almost simultaneous disappearance of data,it almost seemed like they were programed to last a particular length of time..."weird"! although the discs looked normal and ok ,since then I discovered that CDs/DVDs are also very susceptible to light