X-Message-Number: 5646 Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 10:29:16 -0800 From: "Leonard N. Zubkoff" <> Subject: Why CD-R isn't an archival medium Date: Sat, 20 Jan 1996 10:30:57 -0500 From: "Perry E. Metzger" <> That isn't saying much. Many forms of tape backup won't last more than a few years. CD-R is based on a fairly unstable chemical substrate. Let it get in direct sunlight or look at it the wrong way and poof -- your data is gone. Its fine for one offs, its lousy if your data MUST survive. No one has done ten or thirty year longevity studies on it, either -- at least not the only ones that would count, as in leaving around disks under varying conditions for years. Lastly, I am quite unsure as to whether or not you are going to find an ISO-9660 CD Reader lying around in 100 or 300 years. I think this is dismissing the whole issue a bit too quickly. If we exercised this same degree of care with cryonics patients, they wouldn't last days, let alone long enough for revival; they are far more unstable than the "unstable chemical subtrate" in recordable CDs. The question I'm more interested in is what if any digital media might be suitable for medium to long term storage under the care I would expect for data associated with or stored with a cryonics patient, perhaps even with the media stored in LN2 with the patient. As for reading ISO-9660 in 100 - 300 years, if the technology is available to revive me, I'm sure I could manage a reader if a copy of the ISO-9660 and CD specifications are saved. Leonard Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=5646