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Re:Western Digital unveiled its SanDisk 1TB SDXC card prototype by codezero on Tuesday September 20, 2016 @11:33PM (#12545194)
I'd like to see some solid data on this.

I used to think that DVD+/-R and DVD+/-RW had a shelf life of <10 years (this was ~10 years ago) and I can't recall anyone asserting they lasted longer.

After running a long term program where backups were written to DVD+RW discs, and seeing them last > 10 years, I was impressed.

Now I'm finding sources that say that the post-write self-life of optical media is on the order of 10s to 100s of years.

Anyhow, it just makes me wonder what the practical shelf-life is, and what the underlying media "does" over time :)

Re:Western Digital unveiled its SanDisk 1TB SDXC card prototype by tw04 on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @12:04AM (#12545296)
It breaks down like any material. The easiest way to sample this would be the REALLY cheap cd-r discs you could get in the late 90s. If you left one of those sitting on your dash, they would borderline melt in the sun... and for sure start peeling off the plastic if they sat on your dash for a couple hours.

Same thing with newer media - if you keep it in a climate controlled environment the sky is the limit. If you abuse it, it's not going to see anywhere near the quoted life.

Re:Western Digital unveiled its SanDisk 1TB SDXC card prototype by Amezarak on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @08:18AM (#12547467)
On the other hand, I've never gotten writable optical media to last longer than three years, despite storing them in a cool dark closet.

Did you compare checksums on the data you wrote?

Re:Western Digital unveiled its SanDisk 1TB SDXC card prototype by codezero on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @10:55AM (#12548704)
On the earliest data, nope! Very likely I had some or many flipped bits.

I did have the backups on multiple discs and comparing the two they had the same data so I guess that's almost as good.

Re:Western Digital unveiled its SanDisk 1TB SDXC card prototype by digi_owl on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @02:35AM (#12545895)
Iirc, RWs las longer than plain Rs. Something to do with there being a second layers between the stprage surface and the environment.