OT: are usb flash drives suitable archival media?

[John Summerfield]

Kam Leo wrote:
> On Nov 27, 2007 3:56 PM, John Summerfield <debian at herakles.homelinux.org> wrote:
>> Kam Leo wrote:
>>
>>>> --
>>>> Robin Laing
>>> Use DVD-R or DVD+R media. I would not recommend using DVD+WR media.
>>>
>>> You're supposed to be able to use DVD+WR as a DVD-ROM. Well, long
>>> story short, a DVD-ROM disc created on DVD+RW media 6 months ago is
>>> totally unreadable. I tried reading the data using 4 different drives.
>>> None of the drives could detect that media was in the drive. There is
>>> probably something wrong with the burner I'm using. It is also causing
>>             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>
>> If so, nothing else is relevant.
>>> 4X CD-RW media to become coasters after an erasing operation.
>>>
>> Nothing here suggests to me you'd have done better with write-once media.
>>
>> You should verify important backups immediately.
> 
> The data passed verification when burned and was readable on the drive
> of another computer. Only months later when I tried reading the data
> did I discover the disc had become unreadable. By the way, 4X-12X
> CD-RW media appears to be erasable/reusable on the suspect drive. I'll
> have to search through my stack of backups to see if any were created
> on that drive and if the data is still readable.

The next thing is handling; DVD media are more fragile than CD media.

www.digitalfaq.com has vital information on things DVD.
www.cdrfaw.org has answers essential questions such as "what happens if 
I microwave a CD?" (it advises using someone else's oven to test this).

beware, there's hours of reading fun to be had;-)



-- 

Cheers
John

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