American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

In a journal, I recently read an article about data conservation that made me think.

I knew that magnetic tapes etc. have a short life. However, it appears the CD is not much better. While it physically survives for around eighty years, the data starts corrupting after ten years. That's right, ten. And here I was thinking that things we have on CD would be save forever.

My BG Gettysburg is from 1995 ...



Gen. Walter, USA
<i>The Blue Blitz</i>
AoS

A couple of good sources on CD information is:
http://www.mrichter.com
http://www.cdrfaq.org

You should backup your CDROMs and put the originals away. Then every couple of years, do another backup.

I have plans to copy each of my important game CD's on to one DVD, but that is a task I haven't tried yet.

<b><font color="gold">Ernie Sands
LtGen, CO XXIII Corps, AoO

ACWGC Cabinet member
</b></font id="gold">

Gents!

Does the Data corrupt relative to the age of the CD or the age of the <i>actual </i> <b>Data </b>itself?

I'm totally Thick when it comes to Comp Progs etc.

Amongst <i>MANY, MANY </i> other Things! [:I][B)][:I]

Pat. [:D]


Colonel Patrick G.M.Carroll,
Commanding
II Corps,
Army of Georgia.
"Spartan Southrons"
C.S.A.

" When My Country takes it's rightful place, amongst the Nations of the World, then and only then, let My Epitaph be written. "

Hi Pat,

It's relative to the age of the physical CD. Though the 10 year limit is news to me...I've got music CD's thata re older than that and still play fine...



LGen. Hamilton
II Corps
ANV, CSA
Signal Corps - Editor in Chief

.

And if you really, really want more:
http://www.osta.org/technology/cdqa.htm

<b><font color="gold">Ernie Sands
LtGen, CO XXIII Corps, AoO

ACWGC Cabinet member
</b></font id="gold">

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Ernie Sands</i>
You should backup your CDROMs and put the originals away. Then every couple of years, do another backup.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Of course, I never use the originals, except for installation.

The question is, will the originals corrupt? So that I have to backup them just to save the data?

And then in ten years, I have to backup the backup copies, and so forth? Sort of a permanent data migration?

Or does the corruption only affect self-burned CDs?

Gen. Walter, USA
<i>The Blue Blitz</i>
AoS

From what I have read on the 2 sites I have listed and from a CDROM discussion group, any CDROM can deteriorate over time. That time is an indefineable amount. They didn't say much about DVD's, as this was a CD group about CR-R and CD-RW, but they said that it could be the same for all optical media and most removeable magnetic media, i.e. tapes.

So, yes, the best idea is to back up the backups.


<b><font color="gold">Ernie Sands
LtGen, CO XXIII Corps, AoO

ACWGC Cabinet member
</b></font id="gold">

Hey General Walter,
Thanks for the info, I guess I'll be backing up my CD's. I thought as longs as you didn't touch the shiny side or scratch them that they would last.

Major Gery Bastiani
Fightin' Carolinians
4/2/II AotM CSA