YES, they absolutely do.
Ive done a lot of research on this issue because i need to archive lots of big files. I also had some unreadables cd's whom were burned about 3-4 years ago.
The detoriation rely on a couple of factors, but THEY WILL. Some tips for steady burning:
- Choose at least a medium quality CD.
- Set your writing speed low (like 12x, it will burn, like, a deeper grove which last longer)
- Close all other applications to avoid buffer overrun
- Set your desktop on a steady underground, do not bump into it
- NEVER TOUCH CD WITH BARE HANDS (acid) nor write on it
- Store them in a dark place under a constant (preferable low) temperature and low humidity
- Do not read them very often, use them only for long term back up/archival purposes
A better, more reliable, way for storing are plain (or external) hard disks. It seems more expensive, but it is not. Compare the price of medium quality cds to harddisks in MB/$ (and take into account that you will never burn 700MB to a cd, always less). Besides more reliability, its way way faster in storing (write speeds) and the data is better accessible.
I have no experience with tape streamers, but in the "professional" archivers world they seem still very popular.