Up until this point, I've been backing up all of my MP3's on CDR's. Some people recommend backing them up on a hard drive, but I know those things crash. Some people use their I-Pods but those things can stop working plus you can't pull songs from an I-pod to tranfer to another source. So, I figured CDR's were my best bet. However, I'm reading where CDRs only last a a certain number of years before they start to deteroriate. I was always under the impression they were supposed to last a lifetime! I have a lot of rare songs on CDR and now I'm scared I'm going to one day lose them all. What are some of your recommendations and experiences with MP3 storage?

Buy yourself a Drobo. Keep them all on that. The chances of 4 hard drives crashing at the same time are slim to none. When one of the four does crash, you just replace it with a new one. The Drobo does all the work for you.

If you want to be extra safe, back them up to the cloud in addition to this.

On the Bat-computer

I live dangerously

I used to do CDR storage/backups, but those stop working far more often than external hard drives (believe it or not). Plus, it's always the ONE THING I wanted off of a disc that wouldn't read or transfer. External hard drives with everything duplicated AND all the songs/files that are important to you uploaded and stored someplace online is really the only way to go. I've been using externals for quite a while now and the only one that's ever stopped working did so because it fell off a six foot high bookshelf and landed just the right way (or wrong way, I guess). Even then I was still able to take it to Geek Squad and have them transfer the data to a new HD because the only problem was that a soldering point on the USB connection had broken off. Externals are really pretty safe if you buy a good one and take care of it.

on cds in wav format.

I keep mine in a shoebox under the sink.

As others have stated, CD-Rs/DVD-Rs don't last for extended periods. This is because the data is stored on a dye layer and not a stamped data layer like a pressed "silver" CD. The pressed CDs are touted as lasting forever - which has still not been proven otherwise, but I've never seen a CD-R manufacturer make such a statement. CD-Rs have shorter shelf-lives due to light, age and heat affecting the dyes.

The best thing to do is have multi redundant back-ups including hard copies on optical medium like CD/DVD-R, plus cloud servers and probably two different FAT32-formatted hard drives with absolutely no operating systems being run on them. FAT32 can be read by most computers and gaming systems.

SuperFunk59 said:

I keep mine in a shoebox under the sink.

This works too.

SuperFunk59 said:

I keep mine in a shoebox under the sink.

squirrelgrease said:

FAT32

That could have been my user name two years ago.

I have all my MP3s on my computer and on a backup harddrive (where I also have a backup of everything else on my computer). I feel that it's more than enough since two separate hard drives crashing simultraneously is even less likely than JustErin marrying a nice guy. If for some weird reason it would happen anyway, I still have my library of actual store-bought CDs to download everything from again. I just never saw the point in downloading only MP3s since CD albums these days are only a couple of bucks more. The artwork alone is worth it, and you get the added bonus of not having to worry about a crashed harddrive.

retina said:

squirrelgrease said:

FAT32

That could have been my user name two years ago.

squirrelgrease said:

As others have stated, CD-Rs/DVD-Rs don't last for extended periods. This is because the data is stored on a dye layer and not a stamped data layer like a pressed "silver" CD. The pressed CDs are touted as lasting forever - which has still not been proven otherwise, but I've never seen a CD-R manufacturer make such a statement. CD-Rs have shorter shelf-lives due to light, age and heat affecting the dyes.

The best thing to do is have multi redundant back-ups including hard copies on optical medium like CD/DVD-R, plus cloud servers and probably two different FAT32-formatted hard drives with absolutely no operating systems being run on them. FAT32 can be read by most computers and gaming systems.

Bat CD-Rs/DVD-Rs last forever. They are Bullet proof and Laser Beam proof as well.

squirrelgrease said:

As others have stated, CD-Rs/DVD-Rs don't last for extended periods. This is because the data is stored on a dye layer and not a stamped data layer like a pressed "silver" CD. The pressed CDs are touted as lasting forever - which has still not been proven otherwise, but I've never seen a CD-R manufacturer make such a statement. CD-Rs have shorter shelf-lives due to light, age and heat affecting the dyes.

The best thing to do is have multi redundant back-ups including hard copies on optical medium like CD/DVD-R, plus cloud servers and probably two different FAT32-formatted hard drives with absolutely no operating systems being run on them. FAT32 can be read by most computers and gaming systems.

Good information to know. I've been relying on DVD-R's, although because I would frequently grow my collection, the DVD-R's weren't sitting around for too long. I would typically update every 6 months or so. However, I'm now 3 months into a subscription service and I swear I'll probably never go back to buying albums again.