How To Choose CD/DVD Archival Media

(Last updated January 11th 2013)

Translations: Serbo-Croatian by Jovana Milutinovich



Short history of the Compact Disc






Short history of the DVD




Why archival media is hard to produce







Why Taiyo Yuden media, and how to buy in the US




Why DVD+R?


















And finally, the end of the article…







Samsung: Samsung is currently producing two drives worth owning, the
Samsung SH-S222AB


















Written by
Published in
Transmissions from the Little Blue Marble

Published October 30th, 2006


1,253 Responses


I have one question for you. I see that you have recommended any black jewel case for the archival DVDs. Does it matter if they are slim cases or not?


Hi, and thank you for all the helpful information here. I don’t currently have access to TY or Verbatim at the moment, unless they can be bought at any major known stores like Meijer, Wal-mart, K-Mart, or Best Buy or Radio Shak or something. I am a photographer and musician, taking my own photos and recording my own stuff. I do wish to archive my photos and music and projects on DVD and CD, CD mainly to play in players too. I will try to use DVD+R since I find they will burn in my drives. Are Memorex DVDs o.k. or can I find a good brand at any retail stores? Which program can tell me specs on disks? I use Windows XP mainly. I recorded some music with my band The Fruit Farmers(garage band type stuff with a single mic and a boombox) in 1996 when I was 16 and burned it to a WEWLETT PACKARD SureStore gold looking 650 MB CD-R with a white top label. Has remained good for almost 15 years, even after having to be professionally resurfaced due to scratches and being through a dozen different cases that broke, a few being stepped on while the disk was inside. Have a burned Sony CD-R that still plays great even after being discolored from weathering. Do you think Sony or Memorex CD’s and DVDs are any good? I will look for ones made in Japan and not in China, but it can be very difficult because about every damd thing is made in China now. If you want to hear how bad my old recordings sound you can go to and thanks again for the helpful info.

OOPS – Looks like I spelled HEWLETT incorrectly. My typing skill sucks.

Hewlett Packard just calls themselves HP nowadays, btw.

In my opinion, anything Sony, Memorex, or HP suck badly. They’re all B grade or worse.

You can buy Verbatim frequently at major stores, but why don’t you just order online through SuperMediaStore using the links I provided in the article?

All other things being equal, are DVD+R media more durable than CD-R media?

I would have expected CD-Rs to be both more reliable and more durable for two simple reasons:

1) Simple scaling laws — CD data is physically bigger, more molecules of dye per bit, wider tracks, etc. This also affects the tolerances needed on the reading and writing equipment.

2) More manufacturer experience — CDs are a long standing standard, surely we know how to make good ones by now.

I appreciate that even if this is true, one still might prefer DVDs, because of the much larger capacity (and DVD media are practically the same price as CD media nowadays). But in my case, the volume of data is small enough that cost per capacity isn’t much of a factor.

So, I’m asking whether, given data that would easily fit on either, whether there are any reasons to prefer DVD+R over CD-R (or at least, any reasons that impact durability of the data).

You have overlooked one important fact: CD (of all kinds) are built with one polycarbonate layer, and the data layer (and the label layer above that) are painted on top. You can alarmingly easily scratch through the label and destroy the data.

Not only this, this is sealed onto the disc, which means several magnitudes of order more surface area for the seal to fail and allow oxygen in to oxidize the data layer and make it useless.

I can take a commercially produced music CD out of a music store and ruin it with no great effort.

DVDs and Blurays (of all kinds) however sandwich the data layer between two polycarbonate layers, and seal the edges of the layers together. You cannot accidentally scrape through the top anymore than you can the bottom.

Due to this very important fact, I can’t suggest CD-Rs except for an absolutely needed basis (such as the target reading device can’t do DVDs, such as a music CD player or a very old computer). Archival storage on CDs is kind of insane.

What is better, gold lacquer, or silver lacquer? Also, are Sharpies okay to write on dvds that do not have a white printable label?
I’ve been purchasing TDKs and have been convinced by reading your article, that I need to switch over to Taiyo Yuden.

Lacquer is a method of sealing something in plastic. Silver and gold are metals used in manufacturing the dyes that are used inside the recording surface. I don’t quite understand your question.

Yes, I use the Sanford Sharpies for CD/DVDs. They do stick to thermal printable discs quite well, just make sure it dries and you don’t accidentally scrape it off (it is difficult, but can be done).

Based on your suggestion, I bought some shiny silver Taiyo Yuden DVD+R discs, from, for archiving audio files. Just did a successful test burn of the first disc. But I am wondering – I know you mentioned Sanford DVD/CD marking pens, but I just want to make sure: Is it OK to write on these particular discs when there is no “label area” on the top of the disc?

Yes. You can write on thermal printable DVDs without a “hand writable” coating on them. Just be careful not to scratch the writing off, it can be done with excessive scraping (kids, mishandling, etc).

As long as the ink from the pen is dry, it should be difficult to remove it.

I have a suggestion about writing stuff on DVD/CDs. I use a system of writing ONLY numbers on the discs. Then in wordpad I make a index of these numbered discs with the contents. This way I have minimum ink on the disc surfaces. The document is search-able and obviously is backed up too 🙂

With DVDs and Blurays, this is not an issue. Due to the fact the data layer(s) are sandwiched between two polycarbonate layers, it would be very difficult to damage the disc with a mere disc pen.

I agree with Magellan500 – outstanding article and many thanks to Patrick and the others who have offered their insights.

I have a sony vrdmc10 dvd recorder for photoes and vidio. I would like to purchase the Taiyo Yuden dvd+r disk. Which disk should I buy, silver ink jet, white injet, or shinny silver. thank you

Underneath, they’re all the same discs. Buy Shiny Silver if you plan on marking your discs with a Sanford Sharpie or Verbatim disc marking pen. Buy White Inkjet if you have an inkjet printer with a disc tray. Buy Silver Inkjet if you have an inkjet printer with a disc tray that has white ink (most printers do not have white ink, you usually have to specially buy these specially for disc printing).

I am a computer novice and need some help which would be greatly appreciated. I have a Dell Dimension (4 years old) with a DVD-Ramdrive DVDRW 18x18x12x Type DVD/CD-Rom. I want to transfer photos to a disc and also store videos from a digital video camera. What discs would you recommend for storage?

I would recommend the TY DVD+Rs I mentioned in the article above.

Thanks. I don’t think my burner is capable of using a “layed” disc which is what motivated my question. So I would purchase the TY DVD+R single layer, correct?

A drive that new should be able to burn DL discs fine.


Do you have any experience with the JVC Archival Grade Gold Lacquer DVD+R manufactured by Taiyo Yuden?

From what I can find out, either the discs are not Taiyo Yuden, or TY is handing them lower grade discs (ones they don’t sell under quality brands such as their own or through Verbatim).

Not only that, SuperMediaStore is selling them at the same price. Just buy Taiyo Yuden branded discs and be done with it.


Your reasoning is not obvious and may be faulty.

Rewritable media (CD-RW, DVD-RW, and now BD-RE) use a phase-change technology quite different from the dye-based CD-R, DVD-R, and BD-R. Phase-change technology is subject to entirely different aging than organic dye. They share with dye-based media a number of characteristics, such as an inertness to magnetic fields and a vulnerability to high temperatures (the substrate in both cases being plastic). But they differ, being inert to UV light, which dye-based media are most vulnerable to. Short of erasing the media, it is difficult to alter the data on phase-change media without destroying the media entirely.

Your argument against rewriteable media because they are eraseable does not seem at all compelling to me. Far more important is the physical stability of the media.

I understand that you are expressing your own opinion and are entitled to it. But I respectfully disagree with your blanket recommendation in re archival storage on phase-change media. In this I am not alone: archivists also recommend, e.g., DVD-RW over DVD-R for the reasons I mentioned above.

I know that longevity of data stored on, e.g., DVD-R, has been carefully studied, as has that on DVD-RW. I gather that both technologies have claimed lifetimes well above 10 years. But claims by manufacturers give little comfort to users who find that the data are no longer available, and warranties apply to the value of media themselves, not to the value of the data stored on the media.

Most people seem to accept the notion that they should make their selection on the basis of cheapness. And with BD-RE costing about twice as much as BD-R, who among these folks would choose the former over the latter? But doing a good job of archiving data is much more about making intelligent choices and far less about spending as little as possible.

I don’t like media that can be changed because you can accidentally wipe out your only copy.

I do use DVD-RWs for non-permanent storage, such as for installing Linux on new machines (as where I don’t keep a disc handy for that as that disc gets updated too often) and sometimes for mass data transfer.

Its not about how stable the media is, its how archival is supposed to be done. If you need to change your set of data often, build a 4 disk RAID5 or something, then regularly copy it to disc.

If your set changes, toss the relevant discs and burn new ones.

Its not about cheapness (although, yes, with two mediums that have the same failure rate, I’ll choose the cheaper of the two), its about how they’re used.

A write once medium can never be accidentally overwritten or destroyed through the computer, only media failure itself can lose data.

Imagine how many stupid husbands out there have overwritten their wedding videos for a football game. Can’t do that with a DVD-R.

BTW, the UV thing is interesting, but not really that relevant. Discs of any kind should not be outside of their container when not in use. The only time any light (artificial or not) should be on them is between the disc drive and the storage container.

BD-R, DVD-R (dye-based media) versus BD-RE, DVD-RW (phase-change media)?

Clearly Patrick and I disagree on the choice, since he categorically recommends against the latter, and I emphatically recommend against the former. However, the basis for our respective arguments differ widely.

On my part, I say that the data on dye-based media are inherently less stable than those on phase-change media. Patrick’s solution is to ensure that they are stored properly (i.e., secure from UV light).

Patrick’s argument against phase-change media is that they are vulnerable to the bozo. My solution is to ensure that they are stored properly (i.e., secure from bozos).

Perhaps the conservative choice would be to employ both, redundantly. That way, you never have just one copy of the data.

In any event, a comprehensive, systematic archiving strategy for the millennium will entail a great deal more than a choice of data media. Here are some articles worth reading:

“How To Archive Your Thesis/Dissertation/Pro ject Data” (

“San Diego Supercomputer Center director offers tips on data preservation in the information age” (–sds121008.php).

By the way, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act mandates that “electronic storage media must preserve the records in a non-rewritable, non-erasable format”. Since DVD-RW can be erased and DVD-R can be overwritten in a computer, this requirement would appear to disqualify both. Sigh.

S-O only, ultimately, requires Copy-On-Write-And-Keep-The-Original for the context of this discussion. DVD-R isn’t out because sessions (if you’re using sessions at all) do not write over earlier data. Earlier versions of a file can be recovered.

Has anyone done a large scale test of DVD-RW media yet? If it doesn’t stack up to TY, then, well, its not really worth mentioning here, even though it could be technically a superior design.

Organic dyes are unstable, but when properly manufactured and stored, the average life of a disc is going to be much longer than the life of the format itself.

Hi Arthur,

I read your comment(s) with interest, but don’t know whom to trust 🙂

I found this article as well, it pretty much states the opposite of what you are saying, regarding phase-change discs longevity. Can you comment on that?


Sorry. Here is the link I meant to paste in my previous post:

That article seems somewhat basic and uninformed. The claims for optical media seem to be focused on generic B grade media (such as Indian or Chinese manufactured discs commonly sold under “popular” brands like TDK or Sony or Memorex or whatever).

For stuff that is lower grade than TY and Verbatim, what they say can be very well true. They say 25-50 years for all media, I say that value may actually be too high for media that isn’t TY or Verbatim.

TY and Verbatim should last at least 50 years stored correctly, most likely more.

I enjoyed reading your article and many of the posts.

I have learned from my genealogy research that a photo of an ancestor or a deceased family member is one of the most valued possessions one can have.

Having said that, I’m in my 70s and I’m concerned that the digital images I have, or will have, stored on my CDs and DVDs cannot be read in 100 years or more by any future reader regardless of the storage media. And who will take the time to copy them to fresh media? Some say put the photos on a hard disk (internal or external), some say keep them in on-line storage. But we all know that hard disks are subject to damage and on-line storage is outside the control the control of the user. And when I die and the storage fees go into arrears will they be lost to the dumpster?

Recognising that the price of flash drives is coming down almost by the day, have you or anyone you know, given any thought to storing the images on flash drives? A lot of pictures can be stored on a 16GB or larger drive. This, of course, assumes USB ports will still be around in 100+ years.

I don’t know much about flash drives and their limititations. But they seem worth considering since they are fast and a 16GB drive could hold as much as 3 or 4 DVDs.Would they be suitable for this? Do you know if they are subject to thermal changes, external magnetism or just plain degradation? If they would last longer than DVDs, the costs may be justified. This leads one to think that new sold-state hard drives might be another possibility–not subject to damage, temperature or variations in connection to the computer.

Any thoughts?

I do believe CDs and DVDs can be read in 100 years. If I’m wrong, you have the next 100 years to transfer them to the next format.

Disc media alone has this ability, imo. For example, the DVD spec requires you to be able to read CDs. The Bluray spec is the same for CDs and DVDs, and there will be at least one more generation of disc, and that will be able to read Blurays, DVDs, and CDs.

CDs have been sold for 30 years, DVDs for 15, and Bluray I think is nearing 5. I do believe we’ll be able to read these in 100 years.

I do not trust harddrives or USB drives for permanent offline storage due to their nature: they can be changed. Flash media also suffers from the fact that they will go blank after awhile.

Now, although I don’t trust them for permanent storage, I do believe we’ll be able to continue using USB and modern SATA drives for a very long time. Both standards were designed in mind to be forever forwards and backwards compatible. This won’t change for the next 25 years, and probably not for the next 50.

So yeah, if for some reason disc drives are hard to find in 100 years, you really would have had ample time to see this coming.

Your descendants will take the data with them if they really want it. Just make sure you make multiple copies of this data and send it to geologically distant areas.

Discs could very well last 100 years, but not if they are lost, stolen, damaged, or burned up.

Your concerns about being able to read media long after they were written is shared by most archivists. The Library of Congress itself has many media (magnetic tapes, etc.) whose data are now unreachable because the needed drive mechanism is no longer available. An archivist concerned with the accessibility of data far in the future should plan on copying the data to new media (and verifying its integrity in the process) periodically. Your (or your successor’s) wake-up call will be the emergence of new archival technology.

You ask, “when I die and the storage fees go into arrears will they be lost to the dumpster?” This concern is shared by cemeteries. Historically, a cemetery plot would be recycled once the maintenance fee was no longer paid. The solution would appear to be an annuity that would pay for the maintenance of the data.

As to your question about using the flash drive as a candidate for archival storage, my familiarity with the underlying technology (floating-gate MOS-FET) tells me that you would be skating on thin ice. The floating gate is essentially a capacitor, and any number of effects can discharge it (ionizing radiation for one: think nuclear and cosmic-ray radiation).

You wrote: “If they would last longer than DVDs, the costs may be justified.” With respect, I would like to suggest that this is the wrong attitude for an archivist. The program should be one of keeping up the integrity of the data themselves, rather than the media they are stored on. This means periodically copying the data to new media, which implies an active program rather than simply storing the data once and for all.

Long-term prospects for archival storage of data: media will continue to make the data progressively more compact physically, thereby approaching closer to possible eradication by phenomena such as cosmic rays. Techniques like keeping multiple copies in separate locations and spreading the data holographically out over multiple media will help. Finally, I might mention the Worldwide Web as an aid: publishing the data under Creative Commons could provide as good a guarantee as any that the data will be present after many years, and would make the data useful besides.

I’m sorry if people feel I implied something that I didn’t.

Data should be actively checked up on frequently. Some people do every 1 year, some do every 5. I do every 5 and use multiple pieces of media combined with par2 checksumming.

However, I do feel if there is more stable media invented that lasts longer and has a lower failure rate and also becomes ubiquitous, I will start recommending that purely out of the fact I will have less failures.

This also means that when such a medium is produced, I start migrating my data.

My article does not touch on how to prove the integrity of the data. Although I use par2, I don’t suggest it to people who aren’t familiar with how to use difficult software (ie, its not newbie friendly).

As for storing data using third party storage, I don’t trust any of them because I will outlive a dozen generations of these companies. None of them have really proven track records of safely storing data for long periods of time.

If they go under, so does my data.

They are useful for yet another way of storing data, but do not rely on them as your single and only method.

Now, I’d also like to comment that active storage as a storage method is worth having if you’re into that kind of thing. Although I stated hard drives are not a good offline storage method, they are a good online one if they’re part of an active RAID and they’re regularly backed up to offline media or other geographically separate RAIDs (as used by Enterprise solutions and such).

A lot of my data is stored this way, and then regularly copied to multiple media /w par2 checksums as stated above.

In short, yes, I agree data storage is an active thing. Most people just aren’t really willing to protect their data. My article only mainly serves one aspect of this, but there are many things to consider.

Hi Patrick,

Thanks for the article. I’m a photographer and consequently longevity is my largest concern. Am I hearing correctly that you’d simply choose TY overall. Would you purchase over any of the “gold” products? Thanks!!

I don’t entirely trust the gold products. They cost 4 to 8 times more than a TY DVD+R and cannot prove they last longer. What makes DVDs last so long is the seal between the two polycarbonate discs. As long as this seal stays, the disc continues to work.

Gold prevents oxidation, however if the seal has been broken on the disc to let oxygen in, the disc has been ruined and the data is compromised anyhow.

So yes, I still put TY and Verbatim above all else. Ironically, Verbatim sells a Gold archive disc, but Verbatim doesn’t manufacture it so I’d avoid it.

Thanks Patrick! I really appreciate the time you put into this. I’m not so concerned about getting 10years out of a DVD. Rather, I’m more concerned with 100 years. I guess it would just make sense to back up my existing DVD’s every 5 or 10 years with new ones or with the latest technology at the time. BTW, nice flower pics. If you feel like it, bring a spray bottle with you and give them a squirt…really brings them to life and makes them pop.
Cheers and happy holidays!!

I’d probably wait 15 years before I start moving them to new media, but check them every 5.

Hi Patrick,
a very nice review of archival DVD! Much needed. It has given me lots of new konwledge!
To my question – what is your opinion of:
JVC (PLUS+R) VP-R47HMS25 16x Taiyo Yuden ARCHIVE GRADE Branded DVD+R which have Gold Lacquer surface!?

compared to:
Taiyo Yuden (PLUS+R) (52140) Professional Silver Top Unbranded 16x Speed 4.7GB DVD+R

best regards

See my reply to someone else asking about JVC. Apparently, either they’re not TY, or JVC doesn’t know how to properly handle discs (they repack them from commercial bulk from TY).

You say that
“Verbatim sells a Gold archive disc, but Verbatim doesn’t manufacture it so I’d avoid it.”

I have those discs and when I check them in DVD Identifier it says:
Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. MCC 02RG20
How can you say that Verbatim doesn’t manufacture them and who does in that case?
And were have you got that info from?

I emailed them, and they replied that they are not manufacturing them but using someone else (they didn’t say who, however).

But is this not just like ordinary Vebatim DVD’s?
They are also manufactured in different countries and in different plants but always with Verbatims dye.
Isn’t it the same? What is the difference?

I’d assume they don’t have the quality of Verbatim’s own media, otherwise this would be the only product Verbatim would sell.

Hi Patrick,

This was one truly excellent article. Thank you very much for the time you took to put it together!

I am wondering if you could verify/clarify the following conclusions that I’ve gathered by reading your article and searching for keywords in all the comment pages?

First off, what I need to do is (legally bound) archive approximately 10,000 files each year, presumably on one (or multiple copies of one) disc per year. I must store them at least 10 years from the day of writing the disc, so lets say 11 years to be on the safe side.

1) Both DVD+R and DVD-R from TY will guarantee a longevity that covers 11 years, right? Is there a specificed minimum longevity for these medias by TY?

2) If TY DVD+R isn’t available where I live (Sweden, I did find a place that sells TY but I only found DVD-Rs are their site), will DVD-R work just as well for my needs as long as I stick to TY?

3) I know this has been semi-answered already, but I’m a bit confused. If for some reason TY isn’t available, Verbatim would be your second choice for DVD-/+R. But, are all Verbatim DVD+/-R discs of archival quality, enough for my needs? Or just some of them?

4) The machine that would currently be used to write the data to these disks is a late 2008 Apple Xserve. The SuperDrive in it is specifically a “MATSHITADVD-R UJ-85J”. As far as I can tell by the comments, you seem to consider these to work OK for the task at hand; I haven’t seen any negative reports, but a few positives, for SuperDrives and/or Matshita in general. Do you still consider this drive trustworthy?

5) When trying out a drive, what should one do exactly? You’ve mentioned “get one and try it”, does that mean burn a bunch of data and if it verifies then it’s good to go?

6) When getting a package of empty DVD-/+Rs from TY (or possibly Verbatim), can they sit in the opened packaging for a few years and still be considered pristine? Or is there any degradation that should be considered “pre-use” or calculated into the longevity requirements?

7) Could you recap what you recommend for storing the individual discs once burned, and what marker to use for them to be sure that it doesn’t affect the disc?

Thanks again for an excellent article and possibly some further answers! 🙂

Kind Regards, Leo

If you need storage like that, burn multiples, and keep them in far apart regions (such as east and west coast in the US, or one in the US and one in Europe, etc). If one disc should get damaged or just go bad on it’s own, one or more copies would still be okay.

1) TY guarantees discs, stored properly and burned properly, for more than 10 years. If a TY disc goes bad that has been stored properly and burned properly before 10 years are up, I’d be very surprised.

2) Yes, DVD-R is fine. I like DVD+R only because it is a technically superior product; TY of either kind should work the same.

3) Verbatim makes their own media and also resells TY. I consider TY and Verbatim to be the only tier 1 manufacturers, with TY slightly edging out Verbatim.

4) It’ll work. Mashita/Panasonic drives tend to function correctly.

5) I’ve been buying Samsung drives lately. They seem to have the least problems of all the drives being manufactured.

6) I keep mine in the original spindles shut tight. I only open them when I need a disc. I’ve had a batch of TY DVDs for about 2 years, and they don’t seem to have been effected at all. They even have the “new disc” smell when I crack it open. (Side note: discs should have a slight smell, but should not stink badly. Cheap discs have almost putrid smells).

7) You know the black plastic jewel cases and DVD cases are made out of? Its a high grade polystyrene or polypropylene that doesn’t have a greasy feeling. This is what they sell commercially sold discs in, and its also what I recommend.

Have you ever looked at Millenniata disks? What’s your take?

Due to the length of time they claim their discs last (1000 years), I cannot trust there will be mechanical devices to read them 1000 years from now due to the fact their drives are not ubiquitous.

As in, even 100 years from now, there may be no drives to read it.

As long as we keep making disc drives, however, there will be drives that can read CDs, DVDs, and Blurays for at least 100 years due to the fact they make millions of these drives a year, and each new disc standard requires backwards compatibility with the previous ones.

Simply, I don’t trust something I require vendor lock-in to use and I also don’t trust something that isn’t everywhere already.

Thanks for your take.
Yes the longevity claim is is unproven, but they read in a standard DVD player and that’s intriguing.
I’ll be interested to see how they fair.

As far as I know, they do not read in a standard DVD player. At least, their website seems to say they don’t. Maybe I missed something.

Actually, the FAQ specifically states that the resultant writes are format compatible with standard DVD drives – so yes, in theory, they can be read by any other DVD drive – only writing requires the proprietary unit.

That said, the sucker appears to be slow by today’s standards, topping out at 4X.

I’m afraid, too, that I have to agree with you about the lack of suitability of current non-disc data storage formats, most notably FLASH. Being charge-based, unless rewritten on a regular basis, FLASH memory degrades fairly rapidly – while I’ve had memory cards from cameras that I could read without issue two, or even three years after the pictures were taken, this is more of an exception than the rule.

I do like the SD form factor, though,and regret that there aren’t more durable formats that use it – what I wouldn’t give for a plain old-school PROM with that kind of capacity – imagine a PROM based 16 or 32 GB SDHC card – now THAT would come a lot closer to approaching archival storage.

Thanks again for writing the article – I’ve adopted TY+R media almost exclusively since I first read it over two years ago. I do hope that you’ll update it to include Blu-ray soon, though, as I do indeed have volumes of data to back up that are measured in terabytes – but no enterprise level budget to do it, or to spend in a constant migration to newer media.

I don’t like the SD form factor because it is too specialized for the format and the small physical size ends up driving up costs.

CompactFlash seems to be a much superior format, especially since it speaks ATA (which, among other things, means I can plug it into a standard IDE plug using a mechanical socket adapter).

They do make extremely expensive industrial/military spec CF cards that can survive insane temperatures and use SLC flash (which means you can’t realistically write them to death), and also can store data unpowered for significantly long times.

This is not an archival solution, but still rather interesting to note.

I’ll update the article to cover Blu-ray when Taiyo Yuden starts producing them. Verbatim already does, but I’d still wait for TY.

Pat – in your answer to Kelly Easter, you said to AVOID burners whose max speed matches the max speed of the media. Why? Also, what is better then: 1) to have burner have greater or; 2) lessor max speed than media max speed?

What I was trying to say to Kelly was don’t use the max speed on a burner, basically. There usually is no problem in doing so, but sometimes people have problems.

There is no problems with DVDs in burning them slower; as in, I can buy a 16x burner and buy 16x discs and burn them at 12x or 8x fine, or I can buy a 20 or 24x burner and burn the 16x discs at 16x fine.

TY nor Verbatim lie about their discs’ maximum rated speed, so I trust using them at their maximum rated speed. Its the manufacturers I don’t quite trust, even though its basically only been rumors of problems.

Pat – Ok that’s clearer Thanks

Enjoyed your analysis.
Question: For the Taiyo Yuden, can you recommend a pen that will not degrade it? I need to label the discs with something, and I choose to not attach labels. Thanks.

Sanford makes a CD/DVD permanent marker now (although I’ve been using the original ultra-fine point for years). Verbatim also sells a disc marking pen.

Either will do fine. Try to avoid cheap brands, though, many are resold pens that have formulas that can possibly eat through a disc after a few months/years.

Thanks for all the great info.
I would like to use the TY DVDs to store high resolution photo collections that are presently on my Mac,
Nikon Picture Project.
I would like them to function both as long term archives, and something I can pop back into my computer to print from.
I print larger format , ie. 12″ x 18″ fine art photos on my Epson Stylus Photo 2200.

Also, I’m considering a Pacific Image PF7250 Pro 3 film scanner for transferring my older media to digital.

Any comments or suggestions ?

Theres only two really good film scanners out there. Canon used to make a model called the Canoscan FS4000US, and its considered the best film scanner ever produced.

However, its about eight years old and you can’t buy them new anymore and Canon no longer produces film scanners.

The only other option is Nikon’s Super Coolscan 5000ED. Both of these scanners are about $1000, so about three times more than what you were going to pay.

I’d also like to say, no matter what scanner you buy, make sure it works with Vuescan. Vuescan is (somewhat cheap) third party scanner software that works hundreds of scanners and is superior to the stuff that comes with the scanner. Even on cheap scanners, Vuescan makes them so much more useful.

I will corroborate Patrick McFarland’s comments in re both the scanner and the software. I have the Nikon Super Coolscan 5000ED and use Vuescan 8.5.08 under Mac OS X 10.6.2. A 35mm slide scans to 2670 X 1780 pixels, enough spatial resolution to see the grain. If your 35mm slides are worth the trouble to archive, you had best use a quality slide scanner.

I just had my super 8 movies restored and stored on my hard drive. I want to burn them on an archival DVD+R media. You said Taiyo Yuden is what you prefer. Is that what I want for archival storage? Does it come in gold? All I find is silver. Thanks.
Pullin Photography.

Yes, you want TY DVD+R media.

No, it does not come in gold, and the silver is actually a metal alloy that does not contain any silver at all and has been designed to be very stable and resist oxidizing.

See my reply to pat below this for further information.

You don’t mention Delkin gold archival DVDs, yet ,in your original article, you stated that gold as part of a DVD was a “good” archival material. How come?

Occasionally for clients, i’ll design and burn a label on top of those white-topped DVDs. I have some printable Verbatim (not gold)and some Delkin gold DVDs. Any thoughts about how well these might survive the years?

I just bought some “archival” sleeves that don’t fold over at the top – they don’t even close all the way on one side. Doesn’t seem to me that these are a good design for archival DVDs. Again – your thoughts? thanks.

I clearly stated some very expensive media uses gold, I didn’t state this is actually important. The sealing practices of the manufacturer to stop oxidizing agents from getting into the disc in the first place is most important.

If the disc begins to separate, this can damage the data layer, no matter if it is gold or not.

Verbatim often ships TY media, and when they aren’t, they ship their own. Both TY and Verbatim make top notch media. Your Verbatim media will last longer than the Delkin Gold DVDs.

For permanent storage of media, I use the same kind of black plastic CD and DVD cases are made of (usually high grade Polypropylene), the kind that doesn’t have an oily feel. The cases commercially sold CDs, DVDs, and Blurays come in usually use Polypropylene.

What DVD software burning program would you suggest. I took your advice and purchased the TY DVD+R and would like the option to “not finish” the disc and add more data later. I currently use Roxio and I have not seen that option anywhere.

What software is best suited for DVD+R and allows the user to add more data at a later time?

Thanks SO much!

I do not recommend using that feature. Operating systems generally can’t deal with sessions correctly and only show the first one written. Stand alone devices also generally can’t read discs that haven’t been finalized/closed.

DVDs are cheap, either burn another one when you change your data, or wait until you can fill one to burn it.

Patrick McFarland wrote: “Operating systems generally can’t deal with sessions correctly” I would agree in the case of Microsoft Windows. However, Mac OS X does correctly deal with multisession media. I have made multisession media that correctly mounted under Mac OS X, only to discover that Windows would only mount the most recently written session.

Ahh, OSX supports that now? Great. It didn’t last time I looked into that.

Um. Mac OS has supported mounting of multisession discs since Mac OS 9 and earlier. In Mac OS X, the Finder supports burning multisession discs, see the article:

“Mac OS X: How to burn a multi-session CD” (

Hmm, interesting. I asked several Mac owners when I was originally trying to find the answer, and all of them said OSX couldn’t do it. Go figure.

I was just wondering if this is the correct media referenced in this article:

It doesn’t say it is archival.

Yes, that is the right media. It doesn’t say archival because TY does not label their media that way.

Please explain if there is any difference in longterm reliability if you burned a 16x disc vs 8x. I am a photographer and want to insure I am offering my customer the most reliable media.

Not that I am aware of. There were some rumors of problems with early burners (ie, ones that could do 16x max), but I never found anything concrete. Just avoid burners who’s max speed matches the max speed of your media and you should be fine, and make sure your firmware is up to date.

Can you please explain your comment about avoid matching the maz speed of the media with the drive a bit more? I burn on my laptop which has a Matshita UJ-857G drive which has a DVD+R max speed of only 8x. I just ordered the TY 8x DVD+Rs. Should I have gotten the 16x or something else? Also, for best results should I burn at 8x, 4x, or 2.4x? Thanks!!!

I don’t recommend using laptop drives for burning.

That said, burn at 4x.

I am a avid film buff and have been recording films for several years on DVD+R media. Recently I went back to view some of these films and found that I was unable to play any of the ones I recorded on Fuji DVD +R but all the other DVDs recorded at the same or earlier times were still able to be viewed. Storage was also identical. Is there any reasonable explanation in order to correct for future recordings.

I’m not sure who Fuji uses for their discs, but I doubt it was TY or Verbatim. Most likely the discs sucked, and you lost your data because of that.

Thanks for your reply. Thought that it was the discs. Will change brands for my future storage use.

Why shouldn’t laptop burners be used? Also what are your thoughts on TDK discs?

Laptop burners, or any burner with a shallow tray, have a habit of wobbling and generally being of lower build quality.

TDK does not make discs, they only buy them and label them with the TDK art. They buy from anyone, sometimes even from TY or Verbatim, but its usually medium grade Indian or Chinese discs.

ImgBurn tells me my TDK are Riteks. Are Riteks any good?

Ritek is pretty bad. Ritek will eat your data in 5 years or less easily. I’m not sure how they’re even still in business.

Yes, I have 4 DVD:s from Traxdata and I believe it’s Ritek that manufacts them.
I have burned film on them and I have mearly looked at them since I burned them.
They have been stored in their cases since then but now, about 3-4 years later, the discs are unreadable!
I also have Verbatim discs that are the same or older in age and they still function well.

So beware of this and only buy high quality discs like Verbatim and TY if you will be sure to be able to read the discs after some years. That’s my simple advice after my own experience.

So I agree to Patrick McFarland to 100% on this.

I would like to add my experience here. I just finished looking at some Ritek and Memorex DVDs that I burned 3-5 years ago that have things like family photos and home videos that I want to keep for a long time, and many are unreadable. Fortunately, I have other backup copies on Verbatim and TDK disks of the same age that were okay. After reading thru this forum, I’ve purchased some Taiyu Yuden disks from and am now transferring the data from my old Verbatim and TDK disks to two different sets of T-Y media which will be kept in two different off-site locations for long-term archiving and storage.

I want to thank Patrick and all who have contributed here for their expertise, which has been invaluable in educating and helping me to arrive at a quality solution for my archiving needs.

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