Any informed opinions on the merit of claims that Mitsui Gold Standard CD-Rs would be a more reliable media for archival storage of data than any of the other "good" brands?
What about the so-called "Medical" disks from TDK et al?
Anybody have part numbers/spec's of high quality blanks, so that I can try to order the right thing in the first place?
I want to store digital pictures and since they are not replaceable don't mind spending more for media that has a greater expectation of lasting. But obviously don't want to overpay for no reason.
The picture shows some antiquated CDR Gold that were already discontinued in 1997 when a friend bought his first burner, but speaks about 24x compatibility.
They say
"the only CD-R with a real Gold reflective layer, plus Mitsui's patented organic Phthalocyanine dye. Accelerated aging tests allow Mitsui to guarantee information storage for more than 200 years! "
Marketing BS ! Mitsui are not the only ones to make gold+pthalocyanine CDRs ! There was Kodak (but they were maybe made of Formazan instead of Pthalocyanine) There is MMMM, there is HiSpace...
...and the old Mitsui Media Golden dye that were guaranteed 100 years died after 2 years !
I must add that older Mitsui SG didn't have this problem, or maybe it was a problem with my second burner (Yamaha 6x) and these Mitsui only, since the SG were burned with another burner (Teac 4x).
Mitsui also manufactures Medical grade CDRs. I wouldn't be surprised if those TDK medical were in fact made by Mitsui, because this Medical thing seems very uncommon.
Too bad Mitsui's site is down for maintenance (http://www.mam-e.com/).
You might also consider other brands with high reputation, I think about Tayo Yuden, if you can find some (their brand is called "That's" )
There are also black CDRs. I would have thought it was a good idea, but someone reported having some "Carbon CD" already dead (but they are not in the "dead CDR" thread). I still use them though.
But you can't rely on any technical spec. For example, I've got big problems with Memorex black : some C2 errors on freshly burned ones.
The only secure way to go IMHO is to keep a bad CD ROM drive together with a good one, and drag'n drop all files from one CD to the HD from time to time.
Once a file gets unreadable in the bad drive, use the good one to copy it and burn a new backup.
Always test the CD with the most data on it, because CDRs gets unreadable from the edge to the center.
Mhh, just an idea : if you burn only 500 MB per CD, the data will last longer ;-) since the fragile parts of the CDR will be left blank !
I thought that Kodak & Mitsui are using the same patented phthalocyanine dye - some kind of co-operation in the early days of CD-R...
I reported one Ritek black CD-R dead, but actually the report isn't reliable anymore as soon after that my Playstation died, and it was the device that started indicating problems.
