this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2026
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Always keep offline backup copies of your important data regardless of using AI slop to look over it! No, I don't care that "optical media is obsolete and e-waste!", or that "tapes are a 100 year old obsolete technology compared to cheap SSDs from TEMU!".
they did not follow the 3-2-1 rule...
Optical media? Is that a viable part of backup strategies? I would expect tapes for sure, sounds like you know more than me.
Downside is having techbros talk you about laser rot, how internal drives are obstructing the optimal airflow in GAMING PC cases, and how Gabe Newell is based and stuff.
Great points! Lotta my optical media use also included hot summers in cars lol, nothing like an archival use.
A quality disc can last 10 years or more. At a company I used to work at the backups were burned to discs coated with gold. They had 15 year old discs that still worked.
Dang that's rad, had no idea (about it being used in such a way, I guess I mean, not too hard to imagine discs lasting that long).
I have 20+ yr old optical media cdr/dvdr and they are still good, the cheap ones like Pine and the ones with no name at all
What is this 10 year thing? I've also got CD RWs and CD Rs from 1998 that still work. And DVD Rs from like 2002 that are still fine.
That was my point, hehe. I also never spent on the "quality name brands" of disks, $10 for 100 cds, deal! $15 for 100 dvds insert fry meme. Maybe we just "took care" of our media better than others did? Personally, they are in spindles on a bookshelf, I just made sure no direct sunlight would hit them where they are, some days get warm before I can turn on the ac.
I definitely agree with you. I feel like I see people talking about optical media rotting all the time and it just doesn't seem like a practical issue for 99% of use cases.
I seem to remember the conversation in the early 2000s being about how discs would rot in 50+ years and now I see people saying ten or 15.
the 50yr rot was for printed disks like music/videos/programs, the 10 or 15 was for burned media that uses a different tech. Still have another 25ish years before I can debunk that, I have a little over 100 music cds from different bands that I acquired over the years, but the oldest I have so far is from 1999 or 2k.
That makes sense. But I've got a wallet of burned CDs from the 90s that put the question to that 15 year timeline.
And these discs? They have not been treated well.