[BC] Re: Digital Archiving

[rj carpenter]

The fellow I know who has done accelerated aging tests on CDs and DVDs 
points out that most of us have no way to tell how hard the error 
correction is working. These disks will deteriorate with time and 
handling. The raw (uncorrected) error rate will increase. Suddenly the 
raw error rate is too high for the error correction to repair. There are 
some drives and software which provide this info, but he's gone vague on 
the subject.

When one copies a CD or DVD, the "raw" errors are not copied, so one 
restarts the deterioration time-clock from "new".  The trick is to copy 
CDs / DVDs before the raw error rate becomes too high.  I can't give you 
a schedule, but I think _I_ would do it more frequently than every 
decade - and I'd keep the original just in case.

YMMV

bob capenter