Are my TDK dvd-r's fake???

[r_j_k_p]

I purchased a 100 pack dvd-r cakebox of TDK discs about a year or 2 ago. Not too sure where i purchased them from, maybe from ebay?

Previous to that i had another 100 pack TDK and the discs looked like this:





However the most recent pack i had i can't seem to find the picture of the discs ANYWHERE. I searced all 30 odd pages of google images.
Surely a well known brand like tdk, must have an image of the disc somewhere.
I took a pic just to show you what it looks like.




My question is, the 100 box is nearly finished now, which makes me wonder..... have i been using some fake TDK's or something.
As i have backed up sooo many important discs that i want to be in pristine condition for 50 years-ish.

Please advise

Thanks

[SiM]

My question is, the 100 box is nearly finished now, which makes me wonder..... have i been using some fake TDK's or something.
As i have backed up sooo many important discs that i want to be in pristine condition for 50 years-ish.

Please advise

Copy all to a hard drive. You only need ~400GB. Copy to second back up drive too.

When Blu-ray burners are cheaper you can stick it all on a few 50GB BD-Rs for an additional backup.

DVD-R backup is not advised for 50+ year back ups.

[r_j_k_p]

That is good for a short term solution, but long term, shall i re-copy to other discs or not?

[r_j_k_p]

Found the ebay seller which i purchased them from:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...fvi%3D1&_rdc=1

[TooNice]

AFAIK, TDK do not manufacture their own disc in the first place so I am not sure why they would be faked. However, even genuine TDK discs are made by different manufacturers, so thequality will vary. If they are genuine, you can do a media ID to find out more (or if your drive allows, just do some quality scans). If they are faked though, the media ID may be faked too. Not much you can do then. I would not worry too much about the presence of an image though, it's not that telling.

[r_j_k_p]

Just used dvd identifier.
Both my old blue discs and my new silver discs are "cmc mag. am3" (manufacture id)

so i assume now that they may be real..

[chuckskull]

If you're wanting absolute security for 50+ years I'd really have to say DVD's aren't the way to go, Unless you're storing them very carefully and barely/never using them, even then certainly not as your only backup if the data really is important.

If you want 50 years out of them, leaving them on a shelf in paper wallets or sitting on a spindle just wont work.

Some basics; http://www.pcdoctor-guide.com/wordpress/?page_id=247

If they are seriously important, then multiple back-ups and an investment in a safety deposit box might be worth considering.

[TooNice]

Quite possibly real. Then again, I don't think CMC is renown to be a great brand (putting it gently). The HD solution make more sense IMHO, it'll also be ALOT easier/quicker to shift to newer media over time (I would not bet against DVDs being obsolete for PC use at least in 50 years).

[SiM]

That is good for a short term solution, but long term, shall i re-copy to other discs or not?

I am sorry DVD is a lot more short term than HDD. Imagine trying access floppy disks now! You might need to transfer after 20 years with a HDD, but with DVD-R you will have to transfer much sooner due to obsoletion and short lifetime

[peterb]

Agree with the comments about DVDs - life of recordeable medium is said to be 5 to 10 years, however I wouldn't use an integrated mechanical device like a hard drive either - at least not as a record, remove and store device. The longest life medium for archive is still tape and even then 10 to 20 years is the longest reliable archive time if it is kept under good conditions of humidity and temperature. Why not a hard drive? It is fairly fragile - you only need to drop it once. It is mechanical - it has inaccessible moving parts, earings etc that can seize up through non use - and you don't know that it will work until you try it - when it may be too late.

If the data is that important then you should be keeping it on some form of RAID array, with multiple failure tolerance, and making regular backups to a long term archive medium.

Probably the most stringet requirements for long term backup/archive are the health and financial services industries. Have a look at their solutions, but be prepared to dig deep into your pocket.

Storage media obsolescence is another problem too. In 20 years time you may be hard pushed to find a computer with an IDE interface and in 40 SATA may be history. The same is true of tape, too - so no medium is likely to be a truly "record and forget" solution.

[chuckskull]

Being a bit more awake now, and realising exactly how long 50 years is, you're not going to reliably store something today an be able to come back to it after that time-frame, with any guarantee of it being functional.

I'd say DVD's will do for now if you take care of them, but keeping backups for that kind of time-frame is realistically going to require some maintenance, something along the lines of copying all the data onto the latest and greatest removable storage every 5-10(maybe 10-20 depending on exactly how important it is) years tbh and keeping all the older backups for the extra redundancy.

Also don't forget no point having 100 different backups on every medium available if they're all in one place. A single fire or flood can ruin the lot in minutes. There's a variety of options for offsite back-ups, ranging from cloud storage, safe deposit boxes, to your parents house.

As for obsolescence, a genuine concern, go compare the tech of 1960 to today, that's the time-frame we're talking. Although finding old computer gear shouldn't be a huge issue just due to the sheer amount of it we produce nowadays.

[Brucelles]

I went for a 500GB Western Digital external hard drive. Mine cost 110 Euros, but Amazon sells them for 65 quid with free delivery.

WD External HDD 500Gb

They are solid state, so no moving parts to mess up, and will be usable as long as there is USB. By the way, I checked and I have both types of TDK DVD that you have, all bought from proper shops.

[peterb]

I went for a 500GB Western Digital external hard drive. Mine cost 110 Euros, but Amazon sells them for 65 quid with free delivery.

WD External HDD 500Gb

They are solid state, so no moving parts to mess up, and will be usable as long as there is USB. By the way, I checked and I have both types of TDK DVD that you have, all bought from proper shops.

That is NOT a solid state drive! It is a conventional drive in a caddy with some synchronisation software.

[r_j_k_p]

. By the way, I checked and I have both types of TDK DVD that you have, all bought from proper shops.

Thanks for the effort of checking for me.

[TooNice]

Yeah, just a regular (good) 2.5" external mechanical HD. Still, while I doubt they'll take a drop on a hard surface, they won't break apart from a bit of shock, I am pretty sure mine took a few when I took them with on a 6 weeks trip.

[usxhe190]

Online storage is the way to go. I.e. get someone else to store it for you.