Reliable Rewrite-able Media

[VidThreeNorth]

Over the years, I have been saving data "long term" by writing to re-write-able DVDs. So far, as far as the first write goes, everything has been fine. I rarely ran into a disc that would not take its first write, and so far no disc that I wrote has failed to read back its first generation data. However, when trying to write over a previously written disc, I have had failures. These have not been big numbers, but for some reason, some of them fail. It might be in the range of 1 out of 10. I vaguely recall having problems if I wrote a DVD_RW first with a normal DVD-writer, and then writing over it with a Blu-Ray capable writer ("sucessfully") and then taking it back to an older DVD writer and not being able to read it. I wish I'd kept details of these problems, but I didn't. Lately I can't even find my first Blu-Ray writer. It was an external HP unit. I do have another Blu-Ray writer to install as a replacement for one of my older drives, but I haven't done so yet. I was waiting to replace a motherboard first.

 

[webestang6410]

some of them fail

That happens with all "archival" storage. Even the so called 100-300 year archival gold CD-R's. The St. Louis history museum called our lab to get an insight into using a medium format FILM camera for archival storage on film (mostly BW photos) instead of scanning and using those gold cd's because they had several fail to read.

 

[480sparky37 37]

We are currently living in the Digital Dark Ages. Decades from now, much of the digital files that exist today will be gone.

 

[VidThreeNorth]

That happens with all "archival" storage. Even the so called 100-300 year archival gold CD-R's. The St. Louis history museum called our lab to get an insight into using a medium format FILM camera for archival storage on film (mostly BW photos) instead of scanning and using those gold cd's because they had several fail to read.

I don't think that is the problem. I have not seen problems with "first writes" of any age, up to over 10 years now. What I have been seeing is failure to re-write. That is to say to write over a previously written disc, which is why I bought +/-RW's. In fact, the problem seems to be on some +RWs. Even then, I think the problem might be caused by writing with a BluRay/+/- writer. It might be that the pits burned on the BluRay are slightly different shape than those made on the older drives, and now I'm trying to read them on the older style drives. I should have kept records of which writer wrote each disc.