[Elecraft] Re: [QRP-L] Re: [WriteLog] Hard Drive Failure, THANKS

[Earl W Cunningham]

Stuart, K5KVH wrote:

"A professional media group of which I am a member has numerous reports
of inability of cross play of CD's from one drive to another, and DVD's."
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This is because there are two (actually four if you consider re-writeable
CDs) types of CD you can copy data (or a CD) to -- CD-Rs and CD+Rs. 
Newer drives will read either type (usually), but older drives will read
only the CD-Rs.  Only a few (if any) CD drives will read a CD-RW or a
CD+RW (re-writeable CDs) unless the drive also has write capability.  No
DVD can be read by a CD drive, however CDs can be read on a DVD drive.

Ditto all of that for DVD-/+R and DVD-/+RW discs.
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"Neither is considered an archival format among the libraries, archives,
and media types.   They are attractive, but there have been many
documented cases of shedding of reflective coatings, and humidity damage
to CD type media.  Keep any media cool and dry."
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The aluminized coating on CDs oxidizes over a period of time and will
develop pinholes, making the data irretrieveable.  In a controlled
environment, it has been shown that the pinholes are well-developed in
about twenty years.

There are two answers to this:

1)  Store the CDs in a 100% nitrogen atmosphere (no oxidation).

2)  Some CD manufacturers are now coating their blank CDs  with a clear
lacquer to keep the oxygen out.
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"The real problem with archiving is; will the player for your media still
be working and available to interface with computers 20 years or even 5
years hence?"
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I don't really consider that a problem.  Most of the archiving I've done
is the one all computer users should do -- backing up their hard drive. 
When hard disks were small, I used 360K 5-1/4" floppies (the media of the
time) to back up my hard drive.  As hard disks got bigger, I went to
1.44M 3-/12" floppies.

I now use my DVD read/write drive to backup my hard drive.  One DVD will
hold about 4.7G of data, so I don't need a lot of DVDs to do the job (I
use re-writeable DVDs, BTW).

When whatever replaces DVDs comes about, I'll go to that technology.

Whoever started this thread about his hard drive failure should seriously
consider buying a DVD read/write drive to use to back up his hard drive
periodically.  I recommend this not only to him, but to everybody reading
this.

73, de Earl, K6SE