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Originally Posted by nirofo
As I said earlier, I receive many computer systems for repair that have some form of hard drive fault, I would say it's probably as high as 90%. The majority of these are caused by hard drive crashes which occasionally can be repaired, but more often than not will lead to further problems in the not to distant future, the rest are catastophic hard drive failures! Usually, the best and safest remedy means a new replacement hard drive and a complete system re-boot. In some cases the data is recoverable from the old hard drive without too much effort or expense, in others the monetry cost of data recovery is outwith the majority of general PC users. Bottom line, for fast, easy storage that you could lose catastrophically at any time, go for large hard drive storage (internal or external). For long term safe storage, albeit with slightly more involved file saving methods, go for DVD-R. The longevity of DVD-R disks is supposed to be in the order of 25 years, providing you still have the PC's and drives to use them. I'm not sure what the storage longevity of say a 200Gb hard drive is drive is, (it's magnetic media), and you still need a PC to run it even after 25 years. Price of 40 x 5Gb DVD-R disksm (200Gb) approx £20, price of one 200Gb hard drive, (40x5Gb DVD-R disks) approx £70. Oh yes, and I can watch films on a DVD player-recorder.
nirofo.
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Nirofo: I don't doubt your experiences with hard disks, but I do doubt the figure you give for the longevity of DVD. Many CD's will last no more than a few years, and there is a huge variation in quality. A friend found that PCLIne CD's delaminated within a year or two. Some online test reports I saw found that they did not last as long as the manufacturer's implied. There are only a few CD manufacturers, and most CD's are in fact rebadged. It is sometimes possible to determine the original manufacturer by examining the CD or using Nero to read CD meta-data. I think the best include Memorex, Fuji and Ritek, but even big names will re-badge poor quality disks. I had huge problems with Phillips disks and had to take them back to the shop.
And of course disks need to be stored in a cool, dry and dark place.
I am not too sure about DVD, but I would guess that it is worse than CD. I presume the technology is in essence the same, but with smaller pits, and higher rotation rates, and hence the tolerances are tighter, meaning more likelihood of failure.
Here's a few links I found from a quick google:
http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/12933
http://www.cdrfaq.org/faq07.html#S7-3
Sorry but I can't find the report of accelerated aging tests that I read some time ago.
Leif