was getting into a chat in a game about the life spans of various storage medias, and was wondering if anybody knows how long a hard drive could store its data when unused?
seems like a burnt cd can store data for 3-5 years before this stuff starts happening: "The problem is material degradation. Optical discs commonly used for burning, such as CD-R and CD-RW, have a recording surface consisting of a layer of dye that can be modified by heat to store data. The degradation process can result in the data "shifting" on the surface and thus becoming unreadable to the laser beam"
tape drives seem to last 30-100 years from some reports.
this new and expensive Holographic Storage Media claims to last upto 50 years.
seems like a burnt cd can store data for 3-5 years before this stuff starts happening: "The problem is material degradation. Optical discs commonly used for burning, such as CD-R and CD-RW, have a recording surface consisting of a layer of dye that can be modified by heat to store data. The degradation process can result in the data "shifting" on the surface and thus becoming unreadable to the laser beam"
tape drives seem to last 30-100 years from some reports.
this new and expensive Holographic Storage Media claims to last upto 50 years.
