firefly2442 0 Posted March 9, 2004 Share Posted March 9, 2004 Hey guys. In a book I was reading it said that on CD/Optical data storage... the number of years before possible loss of data is around 5 to 30 years. I worry about my older games (which are classics and priceless to me) being lost. Anybody have any suggestions? Any other ways of storage to prevent it? Thanks. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Dan 0 Posted March 10, 2004 Share Posted March 10, 2004 Hey guys. In a book I was reading it said that on CD/Optical data storage... the number of years before possible loss of data is around 5 to 30 years. I worry about my older games (which are classics and priceless to me) being lost. Anybody have any suggestions? Any other ways of storage to prevent it? Thanks. You could burn them to high quality CDs or even DVDs, and keep them safe (its illegal to sell them blah blah blah) Or get a tape drive, but they can be ######, with the tapes buggereing up if your not carful Quote Link to post Share on other sites
BlueRose_76 0 Posted March 10, 2004 Share Posted March 10, 2004 (edited) Yeah, CD's are not trusty for the long term. Rumours (i never experienced it personally) say the indeed the five year. But the age will depent on some factors like quality of the cd (brand). burnspeed and usage. If you want a more reliable storage device i will recomment (mobile) harddrives. If you figure some things out there are some advantages. The cost seems high but isnt that much. For example; a 160GB drive is +/- 180 euro/USD. Thats 230 * 700mB CD's. The cheapest are +/- 0,50 eur/USD so that makes 115 euro/USD. Now youve got a advantage in storings-space (300 CD cases, whats that 1m in lenght?) and accessing files are WAY easier and faster when on HD. Just a thought. Oh btw; do you also backup older system OS's? Running (very) old apps might also be differcult on a newer OS. Edited March 10, 2004 by BlueRose_76 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
CR6 0 Posted March 10, 2004 Share Posted March 10, 2004 Anybody have any suggestions? Any other ways of storage to prevent it? Thanks. I've read the same things about the limited life of pretty much all storage media. Your best bet is to keep your data on at least two storage media (hard drive and CD) and stagger backing them up every 5 years. Hard Drives are notorious for failing after a few years (worse if you move them around a lot), that's why manufacturers recently decreased warranties from 3 years to 1 year. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
firefly2442 0 Posted March 10, 2004 Author Share Posted March 10, 2004 Oh btw; do you also backup older system OS's? Running (very) old apps might also be differcult on a newer OS. Yeah, I had that problem for a game. I have an old copy of Win 95 so if I ever have to install it I should be good to go. I have an external HD that I use for backing stuff up. However, for making "images" of CDs to backup, what format would they be? .iso? How would I create the image? Thanks for the help guys. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Ruin 17 Posted March 10, 2004 Share Posted March 10, 2004 Maxtor has a 160GB Hard drive... external, called "One Touch Backup" or soemthing like that. It's roughly $200 USD, but if I had the cash, I'd buy it... especially after my recent events. I think an external detachable hard drive is a better bet. But, CDs are good if you store them properly, and aren't always accessing the data from them. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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