How do you store your burned media?

[surfmonkee]

I would welcome your advice on how best to store burned dvd/cd media and how you store yours.

I burn out at least 20/40GB a week of avi and audio
90% is on Verbatim media
stored in a drawer so there is no light on the discs.

the one concern I have is that I store the burned discs back on to empty disc cake containers,
these are the 50 cake containers.

From my vinyl days I know its not good to store vinyl flat as the grooves can be damaged, altho I have never had this happen.

My main question is can the magnetic data on these discs be corrupted as they are one on top of the other, maybe for a year or so 50 high. Like with magnetic tape, print thro occurs, can this happen with disc media?

I do store important discs in a disc wallet, but I have SO many burned discs I would need a spare room to take them all!

The room that the discs are stored in is de humidified and room temp.

any advice / suggestions welcomed!

[mats.hogberg]

May I refer to this recent post? https://forum.videohelp.com/topic342231.html#1788290

/Mats

[AlanHK]

My main question is can the magnetic data on these discs be corrupted as they are one on top of the other

The data is not magnetic. Data is stored by the laser making a chemical change in the dye.

[jman98]

the one concern I have is that I store the burned discs back on to empty disc cake containers,
these are the 50 cake containers.

I have a friend who sometimes sends me DVDs of old music videos that he puts together. It's stuff that's not commercially available. To save money, he'll use one standard sized CD box and jam 2 or 3 discs in it. His DVDs arrive all scracthed up every time. Unfortunately, he also uses what is probably the worst DVD media on the planet (DVD-R made by CMC) so between the awful media and the scratches, it's an understatement to say that his DVDs are a real bitch to copy to better quality media. Storing your DVDs like this is a great way to inadvertently scratch them. Whether the scratches are enough to cause problems or not, I can't say, but I can promise you that the scratches ARE there. I store my DVDs in individual thin hard plastic disc holders that hold one disc each. I pull out old DVDs from years ago and they still play fine. Either you care enough to do what it takes to store your media properly so it will last or you don't. If saving space is your primary concern, then you need to accept that you have made a trade where you are willing to accept the possibility that some of your media may get damaged and over time be unplayable, but it takes up less space. That may be a trade that you are willing to make, but that's the situation you have at present.

[redwudz]

The cake boxes should be fine for storage. It's just a pain to sort through them to find the ones you want.

The hubs on a DVD are thicker than the rest of the disc, creating a slight space between the discs. If they are able to be shipped in cake boxes with no damages, storing them that way after burning shouldn't be a problem.

[surfmonkee]

My main question is can the magnetic data on these discs be corrupted as they are one on top of the other

The data is not magnetic. Data is stored by the laser making a chemical change in the dye.

stupid me..... this is good to know, thanks Alan

[surfmonkee]

the one concern I have is that I store the burned discs back on to empty disc cake containers,
these are the 50 cake containers.

Storing your DVDs like this is a great way to inadvertently scratch them. Whether the scratches are enough to cause problems or not, I can't say, but I can promise you that the scratches ARE there.

The discs are stored away, archived, and unlikely to be used on a daily basis so I am not too worried about scratches being an issue, but thanks for your comments.

I am a bit 'anal' about handling discs so even tho you say scratches WILL happen, in my case they will be very minimal, and I am using 90% verbatim. Thanks for your comments jman

[surfmonkee]

The cake boxes should be fine for storage. It's just a pain to sort through them to find the ones you want.

The hubs on a DVD are thicker than the rest of the disc, creating a slight space between the discs. If they are able to be shipped in cake boxes with no damages, storing them that way after burning shouldn't be a problem.

As I say, these discs are archives and unlikely to be used or taken out more than once every six months, or very occasionally to rip a copy off and re burn to another disc for use, so your advice does put my mind at rest redwudz, thanks.

[orsetto]

I'm late to this party, seems you have enough answers already, but just to throw in one more opinion: I used to worry about cakebox storage too, until one day I noticed the discs (CD-R and DVD-R) I had stored in the big zippered wallets with plastic sleeves (CaseLogic, etc) were getting damaged just sitting there! The plastic in the sleeve inserts was leeching the ink from the Sharpie markers I use for labeling the discs, creating a chemical reaction, and eating thru the top fragile layers of the CD-Rs, destroying them. The DVD-R fared better, they still play, but look horrible.

After that, I began storing everything in the 25 or 50 count cakeboxes (100ct cakeboxes seem to be a little much: unwieldy, not rigid, finally going over the line to potentially damaging- fine for temporary retail packaging, but I take them out as soon as I get home and divide into groups of 50). The only drawback is digging thru 50 to find the one you want- I'm trying to move everything to 25ct cakeboxes now, its easier. You do have somewhat more potential for faint scratches and marks by storing in cakeboxes but I've found its pretty minimal, even though I constantly manipulate the discs. The notoriously easy-to-mar TY silver lacquer discs fare the worst, because TY steadfastly refuses to embed the standard stacking ring in their hubs, but even they hold up remarkably well- I just wipe the with a microfiber cloth and usually all mars disappear.

Of course, the best archival storage would be jewel boxes, but after 25 years of thousands VHS tapes dominating my living space, I'm over being a perfectionist: the cakeboxes are the most space-efficient way to store DVDs and I'm all about reclaiming space these days (hence transferring all VHS to DVD). Cakeboxes are not ideal for archival storage, but if used carefully they work well enough. Of course, if you have a subset of really priceless discs, you may want to make the room to put those in jewelboxes.

[pepegot1]

I have about 1000+ DVDs stored in plastic jewel cases. This affords them good protection.

[surfmonkee]

I dont have space for several thousand discs to go in jewel cases with out storing them in daylight....

#orsetto, you make some good points about zip wallets, im sure they can scratch the crap out of a disc with regular use.....

thanks for the replies people, i will stick with the cake trays in a dark place as the discs dont come out much.

any further posts to this thread are still welcome, it could help others too.