Storage Solutions LIfe Span of DATA on DVD .....
- Thread starter hbksabhi
- Start date
If you look around and search on Google, you'll find that the expected life span of DVDs varies from person to person. Some say months, and some say years or decades, but personally, I've not seen a DVD survive over 5 to 6 years. But again, life span varies on maintenance. If you keep the DVD well protected and properly stored, it should last more than a decade. If it is some very important document or data that you are making a backup of, do it in at least two different types of media, other than your hard drive - one copy on a DVD and another on a flash drive.
Depends on maintenance. I burn my backups, mark them with a number, index them using some software and keep the spindle hidden away in a cupboard. Some of the dvd's i've burned are laying there untouched for the past 2 years - scratch-less.
I use the local national dvds. A scratch is a fu@king scratch. Doesn't matter it they are verbatims or taiyo yudens. They are all subject to wear and tear.
I use the local national dvds. A scratch is a fu@king scratch. Doesn't matter it they are verbatims or taiyo yudens. They are all subject to wear and tear.
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Northstar
You will have more problems with the HD movies as they are sized to completely fill the disk. When you write a drive to the max, the outer edge of the disc is where the data ends up and the disk can get scratched or lose the ability to be read from. The outer edges tend to deteriotate before the inner in short. Overburning will kill discs even faster.hbksabhi said:
If you live in an excessively humid environment make sure you store your cases in as watertight a comparment as you can find.
The other stuff you can use software that will include redundancy when you write with it, so you only use like 60% of the storage and the rest is for check files, there was an app mentioned for this here some time back whose name escapes me. I try not to exceed 4GB on a 4.7GB DVD.
If you have lots of movies also use a spare HDD or two as your backup that you can keep offline.
Learn how to quality scan your dvd-writes, if you do not have a writer that can do this then get one that can. This alone will help to halve any losses you might have in the future. It won't gurantee what you write will last forever however.
Difficult to answer, better to have backups, then backups of those backups rather than to rely only on life span. If you go cheap in this dept you will pay for it later. Typically, the data required to fill any media is worth 100X the cost of the media itself, so plan accordingly.hbksabhi said:
I would have said use another dvd instead, don't flash drives have issues with long term storage of data.logistopath said:
No, it depends on how well your writer and the media it writes to get along. The only way to tell is to quality scan.swastikrj said:
^True. The old advice which suggests that burning a media at the slowest speed will prolong it's life is no longer true. The newer drives are made to burn dvd's at faster rates. You might actually end up with a bad scan if you force these drives to burn at a slower rate. Do quality scans to know which one's are better for your drive.
With the national dvds i use, 1 out of every 10 or so develops a problem. But you'll only notice it if your burning movies on it. Because when you try to copy those movies back onto your computer, there will be one certain 700mb file(probably a very small scratch) which refuses to be copied and hangs up your whole computer. But if you are filling up your 4.7gb dvd with small 5mb files, the probability of data loss reduces significantly.
With the national dvds i use, 1 out of every 10 or so develops a problem. But you'll only notice it if your burning movies on it. Because when you try to copy those movies back onto your computer, there will be one certain 700mb file(probably a very small scratch) which refuses to be copied and hangs up your whole computer. But if you are filling up your 4.7gb dvd with small 5mb files, the probability of data loss reduces significantly.
Revolution
Contributor
DVD can be damage if I write on DVD(with CD marker pen) ?
Aces170
Explorer
Actually the dye used on the DVD's make a huge difference, I have even seen Verbatim DVD's dye actually melting (rendering a transparent hole on the DVD), the only DVD's which have shown some sort of a lifespan are Taiyo Yudens for me, unfortunately they are a pain to obtain.
I have stopped giving importance to HD movies, hardly any ones which I will watch more then twice, the few important stuff I have are small in size, and I would back them on CD, as well as on the Internet.
I have stopped giving importance to HD movies, hardly any ones which I will watch more then twice, the few important stuff I have are small in size, and I would back them on CD, as well as on the Internet.
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Northstar
anfjavid said:
The theory is that the chemicals in the marker dye could ineteract with the label layer of the dvd. This layer is the most important, you can have loads of scratches on the other side of the disk and not be overly concerned but one scratch on the label side of the disk and you have lost whatever data was under the scratch.
I think markers are ok, provided they have a felt tip and you do not apply any pressure when writing on the DVD. Using a ball-point pen is a BAD idea. But this concern came out of the use by some ppl for sticky protective covers on the label side, since this was the most sensitive side, why not protect it with an extra layer the idea went.
So, you used to get circular labels with a peel off sticky side that would cover the entire label side of the disk, it was unclear how acidic the glue was in this case and the advice was to stay away from labels like that as it increased the rate of loss of data from these so-called protected disks.
surajspai
Explorer
i have used different types of felt tip markers,but some types cause corrosion(some sort of marks can been seen through dvd's stored for a long time.especially the ones with a thin tip,though i never apply pressure.large tips make a mess.what sort of markers to use?i have seen many say so-so solvent used,safe for cds etc.