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Re: Writable CD - archival quality brands?



National Media Labs funded a study comparing the longevity of
different kinds of CD's. I found a writeup of their results in the
Oct., 1997, issue of Inform magazine. www.aiim.org/inform (click
"articles," then "archive")

--Marla

Richard & the list:

There are in fact differences in the weight of certain CD's that will affect
how, or if, the disc is playable in certain players.  For example, my
company has scanned over 20 million records for one of our clients.  In the
beginning we discovered that certain CD's we were using to "archive" their
information on would not play in their players for uploading to their
network.  We discovered that because of the weight of these lessor CD
manufacturers and the coatings they used made a difference on how, or if
they were readable in other CD players.  We finally settled on Kodak Gold
and Maxell after many tests.  These brands we found were the best of what we
tested and worked universally.

I am only stating this as one man's opinion, but it did cost me some money
to find out why this problem was occuring and how to quickly get it
rectified.  I am not promoting any brand names, but this is the result of
several tests.  We will likely never change because of the success we have
had with these two brands.

A side note.  We also discovered that you cannot transfer data to a CD-RW
and expect it to transfer and upload to another player if it the player is
not of the same manufacturer.  This is due to how the the data is written to
a disc at certain angles.  These players are proprietary.  In essence, if
you are using an HP writer and player to record data on CD-RW, you would
also need an HP writer/player to read the data from that same disc.  Go
figure.

I am not going to touch the longevity of data on a disc.  The State of Ohio
passed a law not long ago saying that courts can "archive" their records to
digital format, tape or CD's, but must migrate that information every 10
years to a storage medium best suited for the day, or what is popular (so to
speak).  So it doesn't matter how long the data will last on a CD, but the
medium it resides on.  I will add, however, that the computer/network/data
storage industry is seeing the light with the arrival of the storage area
network and better manufactured storage tape to avoid degredation after
usage, etc.  I will not go into it, but there is a better understanding in
the industry.  Its not where an Archivist would prefer it to be, but they
are moving in the right direction.

Best of luck.

AJ Du Fresne, CEO
The Archive Company
888.424.5695
www.thearchivecompany.com

Richard Higgins wrote:

 Hello:
 While it is possible to find surveys and recommendations for selecting
 most media for archival use (from ink to boxes etc.) I haven't found any
 indication as to whether any brand(s) of CD-R are "better" than others
 for the purposes of digital storage. While there are several predictions
 as to the longevity etc of the medium per se, I am interested to know if
 any exist regarding which brand/variety of CD-R to use (or do we adopt
 the approach usually favoured in managerial circles and buy the
 cheapest?).
 Thanks
 --
 # Richard Higgins
 # Durham University Library
 # Archives & Special Collections
 # Palace Green
 # Durham
 # DH1 3RN
 # E-Mail: r.i.higgins@durham.ac.uk

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       <(')
         ( \
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Marla Krauss
Special Collections Librarian for Vertebrate Zoology
American Museum of Natural History   <><
(212) 769-5981, krauss@amnh.org      ><>      ><>

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