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


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