I recently read in AARP's newsletter that popular CD-R and CD-RW discs used to burn digital photographs, videos and songs seem to have a crucial shortcoming according to an IBM expert. They typically last two to five years. I have NO idea how much truth there is to this. But I'm concerned since I'm getting ready to burn some CD-R's to store family history data that would include photographs. According to this article pressed compact discs are used for professionally produced music. So are pressed compact discs available to we genealogists? The article goes on to say that photos and other keepsake data should be stored on magnetic tapes or archived on a computer hard drive.

I too have heard this. One article I read says to use "Archival CD's" as they last longer. I have also started using the USB things that come in different storage sizes. Some are quite small. Mine are 250 Megabytes and I think you can go up to Gigabytes too. I really like them, bit not everyone's computer has the USB port. Just my humble opinion ----- Original Message ----- From: "M L FULLER" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, March 26, 2006 8:06 AM Subject: [IL-CHICAGO] CD's last ? > I recently read in AARP's newsletter that popular CD-R and CD-RW discs used to burn digital photographs, videos and songs seem to have a crucial shortcoming according to an IBM expert. They typically last two to five years. > > I have NO idea how much truth there is to this. But I'm concerned since I'm getting ready to burn some CD-R's to store family history data that would include photographs. > > According to this article pressed compact discs are used for professionally produced music. So are pressed compact discs available to we genealogists? The article goes on to say that photos and other keepsake data should be stored on magnetic tapes or archived on a computer hard drive. > > > ==== IL-COOK-CHICAGO Mailing List ==== > To unsubscribe from Digest: Send a message to > [email protected] > that contains (in the body of the message) the command unsubscribe > > ============================== > Search the US Census Collection. Over 140 million records added in the > last 12 months. Largest online collection in the world. Learn more: http://www.ancestry.com/s13965/rd.ashx > >

Would you please tell me more about these USB things that you can store data and photos on. Is it something that can be bought at about any store that sells computer accessories? I do have a USB port so maybe this is what I should be doing instead of using CD's. Thanks for your reply! ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jane Glaser" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, March 26, 2006 10:20 PM Subject: Re: [IL-CHICAGO] CD's last ? >I too have heard this. One article I read says to use "Archival CD's" as > they last longer. I have also started using the USB things that come in > different storage sizes. Some are quite small. Mine are 250 Megabytes and > I > think you can go up to Gigabytes too. I really like them, bit not > everyone's > computer has the USB port. > Just my humble opinion > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "M L FULLER" <[email protected]> > To: <[email protected]> > Sent: Sunday, March 26, 2006 8:06 AM > Subject: [IL-CHICAGO] CD's last ? > > >> I recently read in AARP's newsletter that popular CD-R and CD-RW discs > used to burn digital photographs, videos and songs seem to have a crucial > shortcoming according to an IBM expert. They typically last two to five > years. >> >> I have NO idea how much truth there is to this. But I'm concerned since > I'm getting ready to burn some CD-R's to store family history data that > would include photographs. >> >> According to this article pressed compact discs are used for > professionally produced music. So are pressed compact discs available to > we > genealogists? The article goes on to say that photos and other keepsake > data should be stored on magnetic tapes or archived on a computer hard > drive.