Will DVD or Blu-ray last 100 years?

If I save my family pictures in a DVD or Blu-ray, will my great grandchildren still be able to use it 100 years later?

 

DVD-R or DVD+R discs will supposedly last anywhere from 30-100 years depending on quality, while DVD-RW or DVD+RW discs can last up to 30 years. But it's difficult to say whether there will be any convenient way to read those discs even 30 years from now

 

Don't bet on it. Keep all your important stuff on multiple hard drives (and SSDs once those become cheaper). You have to keep transfering your files to new drives if you want to be SURE they will last. It won't be too expensive because they don't grow in size very much and storage is constantly getting cheaper.

 

Really? I thought it was 30 - 70 years. But if you're really worried about it, just make new copies every decade or so.

 

Current consumer storage technology won't last that long. One thing is that the disks degrade with time. The other is the lack of readers for them in about 25 years.

Good examples for that are floppies from the 80s or early 90s. I bet very few people still have a 5,25" floppy reader and even fewer have a PC where it can be connected.
OR CDRs made in the late 90s. Some of them have already degraded so much, that they are not readable.

So I would say that if you can find some good quality DVDs or Blu-Rays which last for 10 years, you are on the safe side. In 10 years you will still have a drive to read and transfer them to something which is then pretty cheap and lasts another 10 years. Unfortunately, if current trends remain you will have to this transfer every 10 years.

 

to simplify it No

 

To complicate, discs even of decent quality do have imperfections and can fail in a couple of years. They do have the potential to last longer but burned discs are not the same as manufactured discs.

Cd's have more problems then dvd and bluray which actually have 2 layers of plastic. Though not asked CD's unprotected upper surface exposes it to problems. Not just the obvious, sharpies over time can destroy it. Imperfect manufacturing and they can rot more easily.

DVD's dont have as wides spread a rot problem due to the second layer of plastic, if sealed by the laquer properly can last a decent amount of time.

 

*Slowly raises hand*

Yes, the best way is to keep copying over your data as new formats develop; that way, your pictures will stay safe.

 

lol @ hand raise

Depending on how old your 5.25in drive is the floppy cable for it is the same as the 3.5, though many used a slightly different connector that just needs an adapter.

Ive seen plenty of current desktop motherboards that still have a floppy cable plug. Plenty that dont as well. But many companies keep going with legacy even 45 series chipsets that dont support PATA IDE drives companies are using a secondary chipset to support them.

But yeah count this year as the last for all that floppy support

 

for a bit of perspective, nasa is having a hard time reading the backup image/video recordings of the apollo 11 moon landing.

the only proven, long term storage medium is carved stone.

 

Are they having any trouble with the high resolution stuff they have been missing since the day after the landing? I kid i kid thats one from the non believer pile.

What they heck did the backup onto or are these landing era backups that are pretty archaic in technology anyhow.

 

the aussies at The Dish had copies of the tapes stored locally.

the point being that if nasa with all the $$$ they had in the 1960s couldn't preserve data for 50 years, what kind of effort does an individual have to go through today?

 

Eh i would go with that argument, but NASA is notorious for cruddy storage of these types of archives, got only knows what conditions some things where stored in. The admittedly don't know where a lot of stuff is, it could be in this building or that building, they took a guess 29 years ago and still dont know.

They don't seem to have enough resources allocated to the general project of maintaining archives that aren't important to anything on going. I'm sure they have received their usual share of budget cuts which makes assigning man power and actually making an effort to transfer things to new mediums and remaster media difficult.

They take such great links to store this and that yet they cant help lose a reel of this and it end up under 800 pounds of some random documentation on how to flush the toilet in space. I honestly don't keep up anymore, but came across some stuff on some lost stuff while doing research a couple of years ago.

Most of that crap was magnetic reel data, degrades over time. I personally wouldnt give anything like that more than 20 years though I have some 20 year old vhs around that still have most of the video on them. I wonder how long they would go or what the proper storage is for them. Heh with mini dv now adays the tolerances are so tight u record in lp and the temperature changes u cant read the tape. All that old stuff is fairly low density dont have to worry about precision, just the magnetic degradation and the materials used in the tape.

They did start putting alot of the high res negative scans up on their site some years ago, was awful nice to have them too.

 

Nothing lasts forever, so there isn't any point in trying.

 

DVD or Blu-ray can't stay long as 100 years. Often backup and keep catching the storage technology.

 

That's strange...

I could have sworn I'd seen DVD media that can archive up to 100 years. (Granted it was at a photo store) but it claimed at least 100 possibly 120.. Also TDK was coming out with a coating a while back that was sposed to be usuable on all mediums (DVD included) That would offer enough protection to the rom surface that you could ice skate with them on your feet and not even scratch them... Then again I haven't heard anything else about that recently... The biggest draw back as mentioned is having a device that can still read them years later... I'm thinking flash storage might become the "next big thing", but don't quote me on that (I already did it myself )
A/J

 

Even if it last, reading the contents would be a challenge because in a 100 years time it would be difficult to find drives (if any) that can read the disc. God knows that kind of storage technology we have by then.

 

Even in just 50 years from now, reading from a DVD disk would be like reading data from those old old old computers the size of a house on their huge magnetic tape that can probably store few kilobytes of stuff. LOL

 

EH i dont think it will be that hard in comparison. We can still buy record players, ones that transfer music to usb no less after how long in existance.

CD DVD Bluray is going to be a bit harder. If optical technology falls in the way of say flash based distribution and storage and movies are downloaded instead of sold on disc. This will actually uncomplicate the drive making process. Its a pain in the butt to have to include a new laser or make a new hybrid laser everytime a format comes out. But also with the fallout comes the gradual pull from the consumer market.

At this point in time cd and dvd are so mainstream its hard to not include support in a bluray drive. Because their components are easy to manufacture, not so much with some of the old magnetic read equipment where designs and components have dissapeared. You can expect to be able to read them for some time after they go off the market.

No clue how long CD is going to make it, its main reason to still exist is music, dvd's will probably stay in normal distribution another 10 years as slow as things have been going. Bluray is an unknown quantity.

I would say in 50 you wouldnt be as stressed as we are now trying to copy something 50 years from now, but trying to say any further then that is a crapshoot and its just unlikley the average consumer could do it without going to a specialized business. 25 years from now for sure, no problems we can read nearly any consumer format from 25 years ago now.

 

Read yes, convert yes, but its hard. Try converting analog 8mm or Super 8mm films to DVD without pro equipment, which is really expensive.

 

Eventually, all types of discs with become obsolete. Digital downloads will become mainstream, allowing developers to cut costs even more (Maybe even remove the need for publishers). Currently, we're beginning to see the new era of digital downloads for most games and software and eventually we won't see discs in stores anymore. Flash drives will become to new back-up storage method of choice, and CDs/DVDs will become a past relic.

 

It depends, home burned DVD's will not last as ones bought at the store (movies and games). I would not expect more than 15 years.

 

When you first said 8mm i was thinking analog Video8 but now I assume your talking film 8mm? Analog electronic 8mm tape I actually have a deck for as well as a 15 year old camera and a newer version that reads its format and can transfer over usb.

Transfering older movie film formats to digital wasnt really ever a consumer affair though was it? Always took specialized equipment. Thats a little before my time anyways I have never shot film for movie. Been using electronic cameras since 1986.

 

/also raises hand... still have a working 486 in the basement, WITH 2x cdrom

 

PSH I have a 1983 IBM 8088 with WIRELESS Chiclet Keyboard.

Thats in addition to all the 286's 386's 486's and pentium 1's. I have a hybrid 3.5 / 5.25 inch floppy drive as well. My AMD 486 133Mhz is pure win.

 

I nominate flash memory.
Relatively cheap and most formats (SDHC especially) will be around for a long time. They'll only get bigger in size.

100 years is a difficult timeframe to gauge accurately though. A foolproof method would be printing them out with ink rated for that time period or longer (I know epson's inks are rated 100+ years) and lock them in one of those fire/water proof safes.

 

flash self distructs over time just like anything.

Magnetic bubble chip memory, that has potential.

 

How does that happen? I was unaware.

 

entropy destroys everything that has an 'order' to it. eeprom/flash memory uses really extraordinary charge/discharge cycles to flip memory bits. It's the retention (or not) of an electrical charge that indicates a 1 or 0 in a memory position.

Something as simple as an ill timed or positioned static discharge can scramble flash memory.

Magnetic bubble is a nano-scale mechanical scale memory tech. Quite literally, little magnetic balls are shifted from the 1 to 0 position for memory. The things are supposed to be immune to static problems and hae a shock resistance of over 1000 Gs. IBM is the lead on this along with a Uni or two in Europe.

If you really want digital data to last, record it to multiple technologies and store them in seperate places WITH the equipment and software necessary to read it.

A bit much for baby pictures and income tax records that are obsolete after 7-10 years.

 

Interesting. I guess nothing's safe.

 

We're also assuming technology will progress at a normal pace. What if there is some sudden breakthrough/discovery that jumps technology ahead hundreds of years compared to what would have happened normally. Technologies we have now will probably fade very quickly in exchange for faster, bigger, more secure ones. I'm not saying that it's going to happen, but there's always a possibility