Taiyo Yuden To Stop Making Blank Media

So does optical media.

I've never had an old hard drive die on me, apart from one I dropped on its side (whoops!). I've got drives more than 10 years old that have spent 5+ years sitting in a drawer - still spin up flawlessly.

In general, if a hard drive doesn't fail within the first few weeks, it lasts years in daily use, and can happily sit disused in a drawer for a decade or more. By that point, it's trivial to transfer the contents to a new - and much, much larger - hard drive.

 

Yupper. That is my experience.

I have owned and used dozens of burners and blanks in all sorts of computers and configurations, using all sorts of burning strategies, and keep the CD-Rs stored properly, and the success rate is still dodgy.

 

I've had HDs spin up just fine after having literally sit for decade unused. And, studies have shown that HDs are immune to magnetic fields. Because you can't erase them with magnets, the government physically destroys them. I've also read recent studies that show that HDs are less sensitive to temperatures than though, but it is my experience that the slower 5400 RPM drives do last longer. They stay cooler as a result.

The thing about drives is that you should exercise them periodically.

 

Not my experience at all, but it's a moot point. Like I said, in 2015, when we have things we can afford to lose we put them in the cloud. Debating which storage solution will degrade the quickest in a desk drawer is silly.

 

If a HD lasts through the first year, it will have the greatest chance of longevity.

 

This whole discussion is about archival CD's, you know that, right? Anyone spending the extra money for them doesn't think it's silly.

You are talking about your anecdotal experience, which is fine. It won't do for professional circumstances. Full disclosure: I do this for a living. The discussion isn't silly when you are talking about your cultural history. You'd be surprised how often best practices aren't followed or even considered. The best strategy is to have multiple formats. HD's in a data center are definitely standard, with a copy on a local array also available. In both cases you KNOW that the individual drives are going to fail, that's why they are redundant. CD's outlast a typical HD, and maintain usability. That's why you can buy a copy of a 1985 Madonna CD in a thrift shop and play it at home, but would be hard pressed to boot the SCSI HD out of a 80386 tower on today's hardware. The point is longevity of format, and it's structural integrity. CD won that war ages ago, even burnable ones.

 

Just one thing: there is a difference between a manufactured CD and a CD-R.

I notice one other thing: no one is making a distinction between storing files on a CD-R/DVD-R vs. a playable CD-R. It is far better to store files rather than something that can be played.

 

Every time you point out that you're a professional archivist, I feel the need to remind you that the context of you bringing that point up on this message board is invariably the subject of backing up music collections. I'm not going to question how your profession operates in whatever it is that you do, but when it comes to backing up music collections, your set of best practices is largely irrelevant. We have the luxury of having one copy on our computers and another copy on Google or Amazon's servers and this is overwhelmingly the best solution in all but a few outlying edge cases.

If a person prefers one brand of disc to another brand of disc, that's fine. The biggest use case mentioned so far seems to be playing them in cars. I chimed in at the point where folks begin claiming storing things on CD-Rs in drawers is a better plan then storing things on hard drives in drawers. I don't agree, but the larger point is nobody should be doing either of those things today just as nobody should be riding into town in a horse drawn buggy anymore.

 

Personally I've been extremely lucky with CD-Rs, DVD-Rs and hard drives, anything critical is spread across multiple discs and drives from different manufacturers and regularly duplicated to fresh ones, but so far I've had no failures that were not down to mistreatment, It's just a case of preserving the data until somebody releases a truly archival format, data crystals or whatever, or I die, nobody else cares and it all ends up in a skip readable or not.

Over the last 17 years I've burned a lot more than 10,000 discs, a lot were work related, but I still have several thousand and although one day I could discover that many of them have stopped playing it's not happened so far, I'd expect any good brand to last, but I genuinely do have more confidence in TYs, not all discs are equal and they are the best, I have greatly reduced my use of discs, but having a backup of photos, video footage or music on optical disc makes an awful lot of sense to me, even in 2015.

 

My "unprofessional" experience as well. Then again, I don't know a single person who is as meticulous with their media and ripping/burning as I am. I figure there are some here, then again, from the negative anecdotal statements I've seen....I have to wonder.

I mean...even my old Dell XP computer I used at least twice a day, turning it off and on EACH time for over 12 years worked fine. People don't expect computers to last for more than a couple to few years. What are they doing to them ? All I can figure is their overtasking them. I did one thing at a time, ONLY one, and moved on when completed. My ONLY task when "doing" anything on my computer was the prime one. No extra windows open for data infiltration, no extra tasks going on to utilize resources...nada. And what did I get ? Longevity, integrity, quality of my task.

"Oh..but modern computers, or even old ones, are made to multitask"....but geez...I gotta get me a new one...my harddrive failed !" Or something else went awry. Even the burnt cdr's !!!

Tough luck guy !

Nice !

Besides my music backed up on 3 sets of HD's...I have TY and other brands for playing...ALL GOOD. And for my archival cdr's I've used Mitsui for over a decade. ALL PERFECT. That's not even to mention my regular pressed cd's that are probably the ultimate backup that others are jettising the quickest. Weird. It'd be nice to trust 'the cloud' and upload over 2TB's worth of music, but I'm wary at this point. Would love to though.

 

Good thinking. This is a good strategy to minimize the strain on the rubber belts and brass pulleys inside of your Dell computer. Surfing the web as you rip a CD causes too much steam pressure to build up, which can really shorten the life of things.

 

Har Har

Well....at least it was something.

 

Well, but seriously, the best thing you were doing there was turning the computer off when not in use. What kills computers is that too much stuff is packed in too small of a case and people tend to leave them running all the time - the heat cooks them, and the fans tend to get clogged with dust bunnies hastening the process. The rest? Not so much, hence my very helpful and necessary snark.

 

It's been six years since I built this computer. I "over-task" it daily, and it is still humming along just fine. I keep it on 24/7. I did have to replace the boot drive a few months ago, but, that's what you get when you keep it powered 24/7. When you think about it, that's a damn long time for a computer to run without problems, and the HD ran well past its warranty. The only other thing that can go out is the power supply. Easily replaced if it does.

 

That was true like 20 years ago. If your computer of even ten years of age can't handle two or more tasks at the same time with at least a duo-core processor and adequate RAM, you have computer problems.

 

I tend to base my actions on going as easy as possible, in all things, just about.

If my stuff lasts, in this case....cdr longevity and integrity...then I feel I've done something right. If others accept cdrs becoming unplayable/unreadable after a few years then their expectations are certainly lower than mine...so they become accustomed to failure in that regard.

Oh and believe me...I see so much lack of integrity in all things life..that MY expectations of others has diminished severely. Has my hope ? Probably that too. I just try to keep a minimum of things to deal with anymore, as disappointment becomes more ubiquitous. However, I'm glad I can count on some things.....snarkingly so.

 

The process of a hard drive spinning up and down, the power supply being hit with that momentary power surge on boot up is more destructive to your computer than leaving it on all the time.

Other than that, you are correct about heat buildup and dust. There is a reason computers used for serious professional applications have large cases. It's for air flow. Another danger is vibration. If you build, you notice that the companies that make the cases provide extra shock absorption these days. That helps.

I also use whisper-quiet power supplies to help reduce noise and vibration as well. I also plug everything into power regulators.

 

I don't think you read the premise in the first post. The point of this thread is that Taiyo Yuden are ending writeable CD production, and that everybody should stock up. My point in posting is in attempting to stop anyone from spending craploads of money on unnecessarily expensive media. I'm just trying to stop some hapless music lover who choose to back up their libraries with CD's, or do whatever else they might like with them from spending a bunch of extra money on these fallible, over-priced beauties.

 

It's not necessarily that a computer can't handle 2 or more tasks simultaneously....it's just that in MY experience and in what I've 'seen' around me...other's have meltdowns and problems a lot quicker than I did. Could it be some sort of 'burnout' because of tasking, whether 'over' or not, I dunno. All I know is the more you use something that has moving parts and circuits etc....the quicker they'll fail and die. Plus just add in the built in obsolescence and kaput...there goes the equipment. Go easy or drive hard. We make choices that prolong or quickly utilize resources and on.

 

You mean I might've gotten twice, say 25 years, out of my good ole Dell if I'd just left in on continuously ? Let's see...12 years, twice a day at least, 365 days in a year...hmmmm....only 8,760 times on and off. More or less. I guess I REALLY did overtask the thing then didn't I ?


Well....shiver me timbers...my bad !

 

I'm never quite sure exactly how I'm supposed to take things like this.

It sounds like we agree CD-Rs are a dumb way to archive anything. Hope the archiving goes well today?

 

It might be. This is a pretty common debate (in both computers and audio gear), and I concede in situations where heat is managed well you're probably right. I think in most pre-fab PC situations I'd be more worried about heat though. If the power supply dies you can replace it for less money then if the capacitors on the motherboard cook. It's six of one/half dozen of the other at some point though.

 

I think I was perfectly clear.

CD-R's make perfect sense for archiving certain kinds of media where the integrity of the original format is important or desired. All the best with rolling with the tide or whatever, out there in Vallejo.

 

But, something can wear out just by sitting around.

 

I hope my HD's outlast my cdr's. It sure is a lot easier to migrate files than re-rip cd's and cdr's.

However...I wonder. My cdr usage started a mere 16-18 years ago...none have failed that I know of, yet...and I've had HD backup (3x) going now for 7 years. No failure's there either, yet.

I suppose it boils down to HOPE. And easy going behavior.