How long do the disks last?
When optical disks first came on the scene, many were under the impression that as long as you avoided physically damaging the disks, they would last virtually forever. The horrible truth came out several years later when people discovered their disks, many only a couple of years old, were no longer usable. The truth is disks can and do deteriorate over time. Just how much time youll have depends on a variety of factors. Some have suggested silver colored disks have shorter useful lives because the aluminum coatings they use are subject to corrosion. There is some evidence living near salt water (i.e. southwest Florida) can contribute to a disks early demise. Common sense measures like handling disks carefully and storing them in their sleeves or jewel cases are good ideas that can help your disks last longer. One last point: the R disks have been shown to have considerably longer lives than their RW cousins. For this reason, if you are using disks as data backups or simply to store da
