This went directly to Steve Smolian and should have gone to the list.

That said, I'd be interested to hear more about the study that Shai 
Drori was involved with.

Cheers!

Corey

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: 	Re: [ARSCLIST] CD-R life
Date: 	Mon, 14 May 2018 11:42:19 -0700
From: 	Corey Bailey <[log in to unmask]>
To: 	[log in to unmask]


Hi Steve,

I don't know of any studies that indicate a 5 year lifespan for 
recordable optical media. Perhaps the person who made that comment was 
being overly conservative. The studies that I have read indicate a 100 
to 200 year lifespan for recordable optical media, as much as 300 years 
for gold layer optical media. The Millennia disk goes far beyond that 
and AFIK, their studies are valid.

I tend to err on the very conservative side and give recordable optical 
media a 10 year lifespan. Same goes for HD's that are stored although 
I've had no failures when I have spun up old drives that have been in 
storage.

I think that the key word is "Storage." Media that is properly stored 
should last a very long time. The optical media that I have recorded 
will probably outlast me. Then it will be someone else's problem. ;-)

The second factor that will affect optical media is manufacturing. No 
one is perfect and manufacturers will sometimes have problem products 
reach the public. (Can you say: "Recall"?)

Here is some information from CLIR: 
https://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub121/sec4/

My $0.02

Corey

Corey Bailey Audio Engineering
www.baileyzone.net

On 5/14/2018 10:06 AM, Steven Smolian wrote:
> At the just concluded ARSC conference, one of the presenters said that the
> expected life of a CDR was 5 years.  Perhaps it was Maya.
>
>   
>
> At any rate, is there a study underlying this comment?
>
>   
>
> Am I correct in assuming this does not apply to medical-grade gold CDs?
>
>   
>
> Steve Smolian