[wlonh]

"Erich Hammer warns of the potential for CD-R failure, although CD-R media is touted as an excellent, long-term archival medium:

"The warning: Although you may think that archiving your data on CD-Rs is safe (optical storage supposedly lasts years longer than magnetic), apparently it ain't.

The background: Just a year ago, I bought some ACER CD-Rs (yes, a cheap brand, but at least a brand-name) at CompUSA because they were free after rebate. I figured, 'well, if I get a bunch of coasters, at least they were free.' I didn't get coasters; they all burned (burnt?) beautifully (at 4x with a B&W G3 and an external, SCSI Yamaha CD-R/RW), and I felt that I had successfully archived a bunch of important files. I stored them in a realtively dark, relatively cool room, and I accessed a few of them about once a month, though several were never touched (after the initial verification test).

Just last weekend, I found out that all but one of the CDs is 'suddenly' (it's been about 6 weeks since I last needed them) unreadable. The discs never mount (with any CD/DVD/CD-RW drive), though a window offering to format them in ProDOS eventually pops up. I even tried a Win98 machine with software to read Mac disks. So, I have about 5GB worth of coasters that worked origionaly and gave no warning that they were failing, and I don't have backups (they _were_ my backups!). I contacted ACER; they want me to send the CD's to Taiwan so they can be tested. I don't feel comfortable with that in the chance they can read the files not meant for prying eyes."

(taken in whole from MacInTouch today 05/25/00)

well, i certainly know your pain. however, it is not only cheap brands does this. i bought a pack of sony cd-rw disks when i started out my "burning mission", only to find out that all of them having serious problems with my imac. the problem was similar to the ones you had encountered. then i bought some memorex cd-r disks, now all is well. i don't know what's the best cd media for mac burners, any suggestions out there?

[BigMark]

I'm going to just jump in at this point and ask the question, what is the difference between the different colours of CD-R? i.e Gold, silver, blue, green etc.
What is the point to the different colours, and do any of them offer advantages over the others?

thanks

[Moriel]

As long as we are talking about reliable media.... which is more reliable as an archival media, CD-R or DVD-RAM???

[exa]

Blue/green is the horrible, cheaper media; platinum is the standard/good quality media (I'm not sure if regular cdr's can burn it but they probably can, not sure if they are restricted), and gold is about the highest quality of cdr media you can get (very tough to scratch/fingerprint!). Actually, I picked up these compusa brand cdrs and they have some weird sctatch/finger print resistance coat on it, they are extremely reliable! (they have a green color to it). My other cdr media from imation failed me several times but this compusa stuff is pretty neat.

[Cipher13]

I was under the impression that the deep-blue ones were best - like the Verbatims.
At the moment I only use Verbatims, Kodak if there are no Verbatims, and if I can possibly get them, Yamaha...
For long-term storage what is best?
At the moment, I haven't had any probs with losing data that was OK in the first place - what is the expected data life of CD-R's?

Cipher13

I worried about some hot days in the car this spring. I was amazed to find the CDR's had come through fine.

I guess I will proceed with torture tests in the car in July. Will try a couple of different brands/colors to see if there is a difference!

[wlonh]

this is an absolute MUST read for burnable media users:
HERE

[BigMark]

Located and purchased some black coloured CDR discs. None have failed me so far out of 10 consecutive burns.

They're made here in HK. Brand name is 'SuperData'. Would be interested to hear if anyone spots these overseas.

[disectamac]

What a coincidence this is. I've had people ask me about CD-R media dozens of times. I've answered to a CD-R media question in the Apple Insider forums. I might have answered a similar question in the MacNN forum some time ago (not sure).

My basic advice, although not as thorough as provided at wlonh's link, was the following. If you hold the CD up to a light bulb and can see the light bulb, then that 50 pack of cheapo CD's you bought hold more value as beer mug coasters.

The symptoms show when playing Audio burns in portable CD players. Generic CD's like those usually play well for the first couple of times so long as they're not too generic, then eventually skip, squable and become unreadable in a short period of time.

The symptoms show in PC/Mac file folder burns when your comp takes an unusually long time to read, in comparison with a Boxed CD such as those bought ie. VPC, SoundJam, any off the shelf software.

What should you do with those generic CD's you purchased?
From personal experience, you can fling them freesbie style with an M-80 jammed in the center (tons a fun). You can also stick a whistler bottle rocket in the center of em.......they don't usually don't get far this way but it's rather amusing. Even the generic ones are pretty hard to explode.

[This message has been edited by disectamac (edited 06-08-2000).]