The oldest CDs that were made on our single speed Cd burner in 1993 are still
working fine. The disk media was from an obscure company called Taiyo in Japan
(at $30 a piece!!!). They are stored in my office (no air  conditioning, no
light protection, open windows in the summer, lots of changes in humidity and
temperature). I also have commercially produced CDs that are about 20 years old
that show no signs of deterioration.

The cds have (ink) writing on them, some have labels, and all of them are
working fine.

Since there is really no exact way to determine at what point data is being
compromised or totally lost, going with manufacturers' recommendations for
storage is probably best.

We also have DVDs that were burned here and are now older than ten years. We
have not encountered any problems either.

Otmar Foelsche



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