Best DVD Storage Media

At one point in a post I cannot find someone talked about the length of time that DVDs hold their data and are reliable. As I have a new DVD-R drive coming I was curious which makers of DVD-rs you would recommend and if anyone knows about the length of time they will "hold" their data.

Any help is much appreciated.

I've had OK luck with Imation.

Bump

I burn ALOT of DVD-Rs... and the brand I feel is by far the best is PRINCO. Not one coaster yet... I only buy them now because I can depend on them fully...

Mr Clean: DVD storage is really too new to really know. Always keep redundant copies of your most prized data. I haven't run into any poorly manufactured DVDs yet, but as the market becomes more flooded, the cheapies will soon appear.

I just bought some Ritek DVD's that a batch of other photographers on another site just love. You can find some killer prices at: http://www.shop4tech.c​om/

The most likely cause of deterioration of the DVD disk is the coating breaking down. either because it got scratched or marked or it was made of bad materials.

That said, I have used both imation and Maxwell DVD+R and they work very good, the -R versions should work just as well.

The key think to look for if you can see it is to make sure there is an over coating of the back/writing side of the DVD so that the back of the writing surface is covered by some good material. Thus limiting the problem to bad materials.

A well made DVD should last about 100+ years. A poorly made DVD have been reported to last less then 6 months. Big difference.

Just my research and opinion,

It's also not a bad idea to keep them in some sort of light-proof storage to prevent UV damage.

Apparantly, anything using Ritek dye 04 or higher should be of archival quality. However, I've yet to hear figures on what archival means when it comes to DVD media.

Don't know if that is true, just something I've heard from a couple of sources in the business.

Cheers

Ian

There are some brands of DVD burners that will tell you to use only certain types, such as DVD+R or DVD+RW. I have one such brand. As long as I buy "name brand" blanks, then it works good. The other day I got some "el-cheapo" DVD+R blanks, and not a single one would work.

---Bob Gross---

I have the SONY DRU510AX, and it burn everything I throw at it. But I like the PRINCO best.

Datawrite "red's" x4 speed work great for me in my pioneer A05

Burn your stuff on good quality DVDs (Verbatim, Ritek, Prodisc). Two copies. Different manufacturer's media. Every 4-5 years or so, remaster everything up to the next technology using similar process.

I've gone from 5-1/4" floppies to 3-1/2" floppies to 100MB ZIP Disks to 700MB CD-Rs to 4.3GB DVD-Rs. It's funny. All the stuff I created before the year 2002 fits onto one 100 MB Zip Disk. All the things I have done since then is taking over 13 DVD-Rs.

How fast things are moving, heh?

Whether or not your DVD drive can burn a particular brand of DVD blank has nothing to do with how long that blank will retain the data. Period.

Now, with that off my chest , I've been searching for decent information myself on the subject of DVD lifetimes. There seems to be plenty of information on CD's, and the concensus has been that the only archival CD media is Mitsumi Golds, or Kodak Ultimata Golds (which, I believe are discontinued). All others are crap. Period. Some are so bad that exposure to bright light (as in a flourescent desk lamp) for more than a few minutes will produce noticeable signal degradation. Use the Imations and all that other cheap stuff for in-car copies of your music CD's, etc., but don't use them for anything you want to be able to read 10 years from now.

See cdsleeves.com for an indepth analysis of CD archival issues. The only other CD media I might consider archival is Maxell Pro. At least I can find it in small spindle packs in at least one local store. The Mitsumi's you will most likely have to mail order. None of the stores around here are cluefull enought to stock it.

As far as DVD media goes, the only claims for archival quality I've run across are from Vebatim, for their Datalife series of DVD media, but I've not found any independent lab reports to back up those claims. Lacking anything else, that's what I've been using until I come across something better. At that point, I'll be copying all my stuff over to the new media.

My only frustration with Verbatim so far has been that only one local chain (Office Depot) carries Verbatim DVD's at all, and they have only been stocking the older 2.4X DVD+R media in 25 and 50 pk spindles. I've found one area Office Depot with 15 pk 4x DVD+R's, but I have to stop on my way to/from my 37 mile daily commute (and go a couple of miles out of my way in heavy traffic) to get a spindle or two as needed. At least I haven't been using enough of them yet to make this costly enough ($30 for a 15 pk. spindle) to get me to mail order the suckers.

I've also been archiving all my DV camcorder raw video (12GB/hour) on these discs, so I can reuse my camcorder tapes, and also to collect enough video clips so that I can author up some subject-specific DVD's later.

I buy DVD media from here. Check out their stash of Verbatim disks:

http://store.yahoo.com …store/dvd-r-verbatim.html