How reliable are cd's as backup?

well thats my question. I've just spent about 3 hours burnong all of my images to cd's and just wondering will htis last a long time? If not what is the best storage option. I already have an external hd but i know that it has alot of mechanical things that can go wrong so I worry about losing my files. any suggestions would be great..

You should do a search for "backup" or "cd backup" here and on dpreview.com as this has been discussed quite a bit.

Here's a couple of links to get you started.

http://www.cdrfaq.org/
http://www.dpreview.co​m …our_Digital_Ima​ges_01.htm

If you have backup to an external hard drive, plus cd's, I'd say you're pretty well covered. Obviously, burning to dvd would be more convenient space wise, but I'm not aware of any longevity differences between the two. I backup to an external hard drive, plus burn multiple dvd's, keeping one set of dvd's at home, and a second set at another location. That way I'm covered in case of hardware failure, as well as theft or fire. The article at dpreview that dicky109 posted is excellant, definately give it a read.

back ups of back ups thats what i recommend. yea with the hd and cds your covered unless theres that 1 in a gazillion chance that both fail at the same time. they say cds are good for what, about 10 years? your harddrive might die before that, and in that case you still have your cds.

Thnaks for the info gus I had tried a search on this forum but couldnt find exactly what i was looking for. the link to dpreview was very helpful. Thanks alot!

I think the main thing is redundancy. make backups of your backups =)

IT certainly does depend on the make of the discs. If you buy the free after rebate 100 disc spindles I wouldn't trust them for much. If you actually spend some money and get a decent manufacturers discs they should be good for 10 to 20 years.

Alternatively a DVD dual layer writer can be picked up for $45ish. DL Discs are about $1 each. That way you can back up 8.5GB of photos at a time. Save yourself a lot of time as well as you won't have to sit and nurse the computer, switching discs every few minutes.

Agreed on all counts, remember if using CD's not to use RW. Always store recording mediums not touching each other, away from the light & extremes of temperature.

I keep mine backed-up on 2 external HD's that are unplug and stored when not in use. Aslo keep copies on other networked computers in my home. I'm currently looking into a DVD burner to use as a back-up.

Most of the IT guys at the college where I teach recomend transferring to new media at the very least every 5 years, and 2 years if it is very sensetive data (ie you would cry if you lost it).

Burnable CD/DVD use organic dyes for registering the 1's and 0's that are captured by the CD/DVD. Organic dyes are what goes into color film and papers. So ANYTHING which antagonizes color film and prints will eventually antagonize CD/DVD! PVC, light, even wood can attack color prints, as well as acid-content paper.

There are three generic dye families, from which CD/DVD are manufactured. One type which has a gold appearance (vs. bluish or greenish) is the more permanent dye type, but it is not unusual for CD/DVD to be painted gold, so it is not as simple as 'buy gold'.

Burnable CD/DVD are not a dependable archival media. They may last perfectly fine, but they also may unexpected fail! Several of us have experienced CD/DVD failures, including ones which were commercially duplicated...for example, Photoshop LE software which was bundled with a scanner I bought suddenly stopped being usable for installaling the software although stored in jewel box with all my other software in a dry, dark place.

I'm going to second what Doc said. The current CD produced are consumer grade and should not be trusted for more than 5 years max. The most permanent solution right now is good ol' tape backup, and it can be stored for up to 50 years (If I remember correctly). Right now, I would not backup to CD's, but rather DVD's. You can buy a single layer burner for $50 and 1 DVD will fit approx 6-7 regular CD's. If you get dual layer, then you can double that. Personally, I don't backup to either. Instead, I prefer to keep mine on Hard drives configured in RAID 1 (Mirroring). Add to that, on start up I have the pictures syncronized to another computers hardrive. Which means that I always have pictures stored on 2 physical computers. The only way I'm not protected is if my house burns down and I loose both computers. Hard drives have come along way, and it is not unreasonalbe to expect 5 years operation out of them. I've got some 2GB hard drives still kicking.

If you look around you can actually find 16x Dual layer drives shipped for under $40. Newegg.com is my recommendation, they always have reasonable prices.

I also keep my photos on two separate HDDs. However I use DVDs as a backup expressly for the house burns down/burgled, etc consideration. The DVDs are out the way, and I even have a set off site.

>> The most permanent solution right now is good ol' tape backup, and it can be stored for up to 50 years (If I remember correctly). <<
It is true that tape has proven to be readable after 50 years. However, remember that the tape in question was written and read by drives which have been 'industry standard' units in the mainframe and IT realm. Many, many tape formats for PC have come into existence and then disappeared again. So while the media is readable, the question is whether tape units have usable means of being interfaced to the PC, or if it is dated by both operating system driver availability and/or PC motherboard interface bus issues!