New CDs, DVDs Could Last 300 Years

By Ed Oswald | Published April 18, 2006, 1:40 PM

Kodak will soon offer CDs and DVDs that would be able to safely store data for up to three centuries. To be sold under the Preservation brand name and manufactured by KMP Media of Rochester, N.Y., the discs feature a 24-karat gold reflective layer. This layer would better protect against heat, humidity, bright light and the effects of rough handling, which the current silver reflective layer is easily tarnished by.

For this reason, today's burned CDs and DVDs last less than five years in most cases. The Kodak Preservation DVD-R would be able to store data for up to 80 to 100 years, while the CD-R could last as long as 300 years. Kodak and KMP say the discs would be especially useful in the archival market, such as storing business, military, government and financial data, as well as medical and dental x-rays.

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Makes me wonder if i should buy gold now even though the price is high the production is behind scedule like never before.

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About times...
Manybe 300 years is not necessary. But these CDs nowadays can only last about a month if you burn and listen to it like twice a week.

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Who cares if they last 300 years? I mean really, what would a 720KB 5 1/2" floppy disk be usable for 280 years from now? About as much as a CD 300 years from now. Can you even find a 5 1/5" floppy disk drive to see if the data is there?

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Wouldn't buy anything with KODAK on it anymore.
First cds I ever burnt on were KODAK Gold, data degradation was evident within weeks.
Bad batch they said, will send you replacements.
That was 12 years ago, still waiting for my replacements.
(Maybe they haven't found any reliable ones yet, yes, that must be it!)

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"That was 12 years ago, still waiting for my replacements."

Well, it seems pretty obvious, even to yourself that they aren't coming, because you've been forgotten about. If you wanted replacements, you should have chased it up immediately afterwards.

Saying you're still waiting is an outright misleading comment.

I mean holding a grudge for a pack of CDRs you bought *twelve years* really is kind of extreme.

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Maybe they should consult some of the people who worked at the now-defunct "Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs". They did their "Original Master" CD's in 24k.

Did they know something then that Kodak is trying to accomplish now?

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And 300 years later, if they are wrong, you just need to find your original store receipt and you can get a full refund (in 2306 dollars, probably equivalent to $0.0001 in 2006 dollars).

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u think kodak will survive for the next 300 years? i don't think so. there's only handful of companies that last over a century, and most of them are in natural resources.

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Great!!! Now I have worry about people steeling my DVD's just to scape off the gold. heheh

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I think that redundant hard drive storage is a better way to go... considering that you can pick up an 80GB HD for less than the cost of 100 Gold-Plated CDRs.

For me, CDs are a way of transporting data, not storing data. There's not enough space on a CD to store enough data - several boxes of CDs with content on them in read-only format gathering dust vs. a hard drive... hrmm...

I'm not sure if anyone else feels this way, but CDs are disposible media.

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very well said.

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And we all know how reliable HDD's are.
What happens when the HDD fails? (which is likely, if it's unlplugged and stored in a cupboard).

At the minute home users have no vaible forms of reliable data backup, regular CD/DVD are unreliable, tape drives are beyond the reach of average consumers, and HDD are fragile and prone to data loss.

These sound like just the ticket.

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I've heard that these CDs are picking up a lot of attention in the hip hop community for bling appeal and cost.

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Not bad at all. $115 for 100 CDs or 50 DVDs ($1.15 per CD or $2.30 for a DVD, but you knew that). ;) I think I may still prefer my easier method of sync'ing a few critical folders on a remote HD (LAN/WLAN/WAN/external HD). And since moving exclusively to storing massive data on external HDs, I've burned maybe 5 DVDs..after buying a 50 DVD+R pack two years ago hehehe

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...the discs feature a 24-karat gold reflective layer..

Not to mention how sweet they'd look hanging from your car mirror to go with your spinners... on your focus... with a wing spoiler... and blue leds that light up the ground...

Fecetious Bug

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dont forget the empty can of beans attached to the muffler to give the car that unique "diarrheic-butt" sound as you accelerate ....

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So is this a "scam-to-be" by kodak so that people adopt their technology ... *** tsk-tsk-tsk ***

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Hey, I've got beta tapes that are 20 years old that are still good.
BTW I doubt with humankind's lemming-like rush to extinction there will be anyone left in 300 years to listen to great great grandpa's Dead concerts anyway, so it's a moot point at best.

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Lemmings don't rush to extinction. Humans, I have no comment about.

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All media wear out. That's almost a definition of media... however in order to sell these new discs, Kodak are going to need a little FUD to get the ball going.

Some archival stuff is appropriate. Those buyers know who they are. But if Kodak think that getting the average joe to buy this stuff is going to work... how many people bought "archival quality cassette tapes"?

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now all i need to do is find out how to live for 300 years. less than 5 years? yea, thats total BS. how the hell will we know there even telling the truth. this can easly be a scam. There is no proof that they could last 300 years. They must have the only time machine ever invented. hmm?

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less than five years ???
oh this has to be a joke ....
so all that i've put on cd-r will be gone in 5 years .. ???
all my 5 year old dvds are gone ???

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ok it's five years in a daily basis workout with a certain cd. but if it's archieved somewhere without light, low humidity and abscence of dust, i think it can last for more than 15 years (i hope!!)
i've seen cds destroyed by an infection of somekind of living micro organisms, but the preservation was not ideal. i think it was caused by too much humidity.

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Sadley, almost every modern CD-R lasts only about that long. Now, the Verbatum CD-Rs I burned using my Memorex CDRW1622 2X2X6 CDRW drive (that cost me over $500 back in 1997)--those work flawlessly. The ones I burned last year? Heck some of those don't even work.

Burn at 2x with an ancient CDRW drive and you'll be OK. I'm so glad I stocked up on 2x certified CD-Rs, they really worked the best.

I know everyone is laughing at me now--and I'm sure there are some lucky folks who have burned 12 CDs at 24x speed 3 years ago and they may still work--but I am a tech support guy. I get to see results without actually witnessing them. CONSISTENTLY, OLDER CD-Rs AND CDRW DRIVES ARE THE ONLY DISCS THAT LAST OVER THREE YEARS. That's what I've found to be true anyway.

By the way, my memorex CDRW1622 is still being used for very important data burning. It's the only CDRW drive I can truly depend on I fear.

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YES !! I've seen this "infection" on some DVDs ... they appear as uncleanable white spots all over .... :(

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crap !!!

no wonder i keep on getting "cylindric redundancy error" on discs that used to be perfectly fine

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I think they call it the whitepox :D

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I still have a bunch of CD-Rs I burned nine years ago on a first generation burner and they all work fine.

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Likely, yes.

It's a known fact that current CD/DVD media is not very good for long-life media.

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