The disc itself may last a long time, but your data may not.  When you burn
a disc, the laser in your disc burner is changing a dye in the data layer of
your CD or DVD.  That dye will degrade over time, 5-10 years is the most
common lifespan I have heard.  I duped a group of about 250 CDs a few years
ago in order to refresh the media - the discs were 5-10 years old and we
experienced a 3-5% failure rate.   We of course had a backup set of discs so
I was able to recover all the data even when the working copy of a disc
failed.  Never trust a single copy of a CD that has been burned in a
computer for long term storage, always make a backup, and plan on refreshing
your media periodically.  This of course doesn't even touch on the data
migration issues that can arise due to software obsolescence and other
issues as Fred Grevin pointed out in his response.  Hope that helps!

-- Joseph Morris

On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 12:02 AM, Mario Rieger <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Dear All,
>
> We discussed opportunities to save time and make filing processes more
> efficient. In this context we discussed the opportunity to burn the general
> email correspondence on CD and file this CD instead of printing out all
> individual emails. As we already have a local archiving process in place
> that
> already covers the necessity to reburn the CD after a storage period of
> five
> years data integrity is secured.
>
> Now we have got the information that there should be CD/DVDs with a much
> more longvity; it is said that there are some vendors that claim up to 100
> years; reburning after 5 years is then not needed.
>
> Does anybody of you has further information in this topic?
>
> Thanks for your assistance and best regards from Germany.
>
> Mario Rieger
> Janssen-Cilag GmbH
> Records Manager
> Legal Affairs & Business Integrity
>
> Johnson & Johnson Platz 1
> 41470 Neuss
> Tel.: +49 (0) 2137 955 320
> FAX: +49 (0) 2137 955 683
> eMail: [log in to unmask]
>
> List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
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