[wplug] Online Backup

Patrick Wagstrom pwagstro at andrew.cmu.edu
Sat Oct 13 09:15:34 EDT 2007


Zach wrote:
> On 10/12/07, Teodorski, Chris <teodorski at ppg.com> wrote:
>> CD's sure, but what is the shelf life of a burned CD (maybe 5 years
> at best) and I
>> hear the same is true for DVDs.  I wonder how many parents are unaware that a
>> burned CD isn't like a "pressed" CD and 7 years from now when they go
> to look at
>> the photos of their little bundles of joy are going to be shocked to
> discover some
>> or all are unreadable.
> 
> Wow I didn't realize this! So all my data CD's will be gone in 5
> years?! UGH NOOOOO!
> How can I backup my data so it will be around for a long time? I don't
> mean online backup, I need something I can do myself at home.

Just to clarify, it doesn't 100% mean that all of your data will be gone
in 5 years.  Back in 1996 I spent way too much money as a high school
student to buy a CD Burner.  I still have some of the first CDs I burned
using that machine (when a blank CD would cost about $15-$20 and you
needed to ask at the special service desk at CompUSA for them), and my
testing shows 10 out of 10 just fine.  Well, as in I could pull up, do
an ls, and poke at a few other files.

All it means is that you should have multiple backup formats and cycle them.

--Patrick


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