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Or so they think.
Depending on the quality of CD a consumer buys, the information stored on it can begin to deteriorate in as little as two years, according to some experts. That means if the user attempts to look at the photos on CD six years later, they may see a message that says “corrupt file system” instead of images from a once-in-a-lifetime vacation.
That is a worst case scenario with CDs, but it is possible if the quality of the CD is poor and the user does not take proper care of it.
“When (CDs) first came out, everybody was saying they would last 80 to 100 years,” said Matt Dorkin, a member of Best Buy's Geek Squad in Deptford Township, Gloucester County. “And then the real world happened, and people were noticing, ‘Hey, our information is gone.' ”
“Storage is a major issue,” Dorkin said. “This is exactly the question that customers have ... They ask, ‘What can we do that's better than that?' There are other options.”
What many consumers don't realize, Dorkin said, is that a conventional music CD purchased in a store, which is manufactured with a high-quality mechanical press, is quite different from the blank CD-Rs purchased at an office supply or discount store.
Those blank CD-Rs are coated with a layer of dye, which is “burned” with new information when put in a computer's CD burner. A laser in the computer melts the dye, and that is how information is stored.
That dye degrades at different rates depending on the quality of the dye, Dorkin said. For example, blank CDs that are called “gold” CDs contain a higher quality dye that produces a longer shelf life for photos or music.
CD-Rs, which stands for “read only” CDs, can last for decades if they are cared for. That is considerably longer than CD-RWs, which stands for “rewritable” CDs. They last only 25 years under entirely optimal conditions.
“This is one of those cases where I would suggest that brand matters,” Dorkin said. “You want to go with a company like Memorex, which has a good reputation, as compared to something like ‘CDs 4 U.' ”
There is a better solution. To preserve all those photos and songs, use an external hard drive, Dorkin said.
“I highly recommend external hard drives,” Dorkin said. “They are great for a couple of reasons. Because they're removed from the computers, they're not susceptible to the daily rigors that a hard drive can go through ... you can get an external hard drive for under $100 now.”
Another option is digital tapes. The downside, Dorkin said, is they are slower and are a more lengthy process, but they store up to 4 gigabytes of information and last for up to 30 years.
“The last thing I want to have happen is someone lose all of their precious memories,” Dorkin said.
Of course, not everyone is running away from CDs as a storage medium.
Earle Stevens is confident that his hundreds of digital photos are safe and sound. He has archived them on blank CDs — and he is certain they will be there when he needs them.
“The trend is to go to second hard drives, but I think that's dangerous because it's not a matter of if they're gonna fail, it's when,” said Stevens, president of the Ocean County Camera Club. “Hard drives crash. It's a high-speed device operating on a tiny motor.”
Stevens, 68, said he knows CDs are not a good permanent place for his images. But he is not worried about that.
“People think they last forever,” Stevens said. “They don't last forever. But ... I ain't gonna live forever.”
To e-mail Regina Schaffer at The Press:
RSchaffer@pressofac.com