CD-R Test No. 2 Survival to direct sunlight and moisture

A small number of CD-Rs were left outside a balcony for 8 months, from the beginning of June 2004 until the end of January 2005. They were positioned with the media resting on a leaf of paper, and with the label upside. A small stone was put approximately above the center hole to keep in position each CD.

In this way the CDs had been exposed to direct sunlight (summer '04 was quite hot), more on one side that on the other, as they were never turned (as we saw, central hole and opposite side were somewhat protected by a small stone which made some shadow). They also caught some rain and even some snow (in January).

They were submitted, as far as possible, to the very same conditions. However, as they lied outside, it is of course possible that some of them had been exposed to unexpected hazards. For instance, small pieces of wood carried by the wind may have hit some them and not some others. The test, in any case shows that often the same Brand/Type of CDs suffered consistent degrees of damage.

Notes:
CNT - A = Audio, D = Data
S - Recording Speed (all have been burned with an L.G. CED-8080B CD-RW Drive)
Manufacturer, ATIP and Media type have been identified by CDR Identifier v. 1.63.

COMMENTS

This test shows that not necessarily well-known branded CD-Rs survive better to atmospheric hazards.

Disks can be subdivided into three groups:

GOOD - No problems

QUITE GOOD - All files/tracks could be retrieved, but either media and/or label show clear signs of alteration, or data was difficult to extract

BAD - Extraction was unsuccesful and resulted in a loss of data

If we classify each disk this way, we may build the following rankings (best before, worst after):

Please note that these results are by no means definitive, as the number of tested CDs was quite small. I am carrying out a newer, similar test, involving more than 200 CD-Rs. Note also that, in the case of the TDK disk, it is just possible that it was hit by something which caused a serious surface damage making the disk unreadable. Alternately, the disk must have had some serious surface defect.