Detereorating CD's

Tour2ma

Found a couple recently with bubbles that had formed between the polycarb and the recording surface. Unplayable through the affected portions…

I'm hoping this is not the beginning of the long feared life limit prophesized a decade or two ago.

Anyone else unfortunate enough to experience this?

decal

Nothing lasts for ever,sorry.

cnh

I read about that, too. But, knock, on wood, all of my CDs are still in MINT condition...the oldest however are only two decades? So not as old as they can be.

Hope this is NOT a sign of things to come?

cnh

simm

I started buying CD's in 1986 or 87 and have not had any good bad yet that I am aware of.I do keep them in their cases when not in use. I'm sure that has helped. I do, however, have a few DVD's that have stopped playing properly.

falconcry72

Backup everything. That's the upside to digital media; though fragile, it can be duplicated, copied, and/or backed up easilly and cheaply.

Blank CD's deteriorate MUCH quicker than production CD's, but some brands are far better than others. Taiyo Yudens are good, but that makes me think that some production CD's are made better than others. CD's don't like water, light, or heat.

I got an email from newegg with a promo code to get a Western Digital 2TB external hard drive for $89 shipped. I currently have 6TB's of storage (3 backed up), including one of the aforementioned drives, that I use for music, but I'm now thinking of buying 2 of those drives for movies.

TORI3

Living down here in Phoenix, I've noticed that many of the CDs that in reside in my car have become unplayable -- mostly my CD-Rs. I'm guessing it's a combination of things, mainly the 115 degree weather (130 degree guestimate in the car) and amount of time I'm playing them -- as well as handling them roughly while driving.

I think the external hard drive is a good idea.

reeltrouble1

In a word.

No

RT1

steveinaz

Many of my CD's are from the early 80's, I haven't noticed any problems....of course, early CD's were noticably thicker/heavier.

treitz3

Personally, no. According to the Library of Congress, it will happen.

mantis

Wow , I have not heard of this. I keep all my cd's in my basement in a cabinet in their jewel cases. I have CD's from the 80's and all of them are like new.
I don't spin them anymore as I have them all in itunes and backed up on a external hard drive. If this does happen I could really care less unless both my hard drives fail.

Maybe time to invest in a raid drive system

fishbones

The only issue I've had is leaving cd's in the hot Florida car for long periods (years). Some of my ooold cd's have actually delaminated the layer of laser matting silver inside the cd - just dissappeared to where you can look right through the cd, and they won't play anymore. But that's in extreme heat only. CD's I've had for just as long kept in the house are still like brand new.

Tour2ma

Heat has been common to a couple of the affirmative replies. My two problem CD's have spent time in my travel pack, albeit along with a couple dozen others showing no issues as yet.

Time to make a bunch of travel dup's...

treitz3

Tour, there is a thread around here somewhere that discusses this very thing. I'll try to find it for ya'.

treitz3

Here's a link found on the thread listed below...

Link - http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/opticalmedialongevity.html
Thread - http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=102678

Here's another thread that may interest you...

Thread - http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=110702

If you have a chance to check out the show about the Library of Congress on the History Channel, it will show you first hand what can happen in accelerated aging tests. They also tell you why this happens.

treitz3

Well, I tried to see if the program was on the net or You-tube yet. Apparently it is not. I guess you either have to wait for it to come on the History Channel again or purchase the DVD for 25 smackers. If anybody is interested...It aired on the History Channel's Modern Marvels. The episode was called "The Library of Congress".

Tour2ma

Thanks, t3... I appreciate the effort.

vc69

There is a well known problem with some very early CD's manufactured in Germany. At that time there were only 2-3 facilities in the world pressing discs. I have 2. One is the Genesis album (83) which is OK so far and the other is Robert Plant - Principal of Moments album which is unplayable. These German pressings are distinguishable by their labels.

Here is a picture containing some German labels.

Rivrrat

TORI3 wrote: »

Living down here in Phoenix, I've noticed that many of the CDs that in reside in my car have become unplayable -- mostly my CD-Rs. I'm guessing it's a combination of things, mainly the 115 degree weather (130 degree guestimate in the car) and amount of time I'm playing them -- as well as handling them roughly while driving.

I think the external hard drive is a good idea.

Ihat's pretty much my story too.

It seems the heat here is death to cd-r's. I put them in my truck changer, leave them alone, and after a while they start to skip like crazy. So far I've been lucky and haven't had any problems that I know of with commercial cd's.

cheddar

mantis wrote: »

Maybe time to invest in a raid drive system

This already saved my data. Had a WD Raptor fail in a RAID 5 array. If that had been my only drive, it would have been a disaster. Got a new drive, hooked it up, automatically rebuilt the array, and was back in business.

There must be a lot of people out there storing pictures, videos, and music on their HDD's without realizing how close they are to losing it all...

I actually back up data from my RAID drives to blu-ray. But I've also had a BD-R (less than a year old) go bad. So I like having data backed up in both places. And of course, RAID doesn't go out of sync with new data.

heiney9

Nope, but I rip mine in FLAC and use a music server.

H9

Squidmon

I have about half a dozen discs now where the recording layer is developing little holes in them, rendering them unplayable. Hold it up to a light and it streams thru the little holes. Otherwise, the discs are pristine, no scratches etc