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Given that they are protected from light, humidity and excessive heat & cold, what is the lifespan range of DVD and Blu-ray discs?

Mehper C. Palavuzlar
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1 Answers1

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DVD

According to the Optical Storage Technology Association (OSTA), "manufacturers claim life spans ranging from 30 to 100 years for DVD, DVD-R and DVD+R discs and up to 30 years for DVD-RW, DVD+RW and DVD-RAM".✝

Blu-ray

The recordable media used in red laser disc technology like DVD's and CD's is an organic dye that is very sensitive to light. Blu-ray disks, however, use a combination of silicon and copper which is bonded during the burning process, this alloy is much more resilient than the organic dye. Manufacturers claim a life span from 100 up to 150 years for Blu-ray disks.✝

✝ = However, these media don't exist long enough yet to confirm or reject those claims. So at the moment, it's "about as long as the oldest working DVD/BD is still working". These claims are made assuming the disks are stored properly. (Not too hot, dark, not too humid, etc.) Furthermore, these life spans will be averages, I've used DVD disks that stopped working or showed data corruption after 2 years.

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Pylsa
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  • But if you're talking about the actual plastic and metal, whether or not you can read it, it's about a million years. – Keith Feb 28 '11 at 19:12
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    @Keith Well I don't see why you'd want to keep just the plastic disk xD – Pylsa Feb 28 '11 at 20:51
  • You may not want to keep it, but the Earth will be keeping it somewhere. – Keith Feb 28 '11 at 21:05
  • I have several commercial audio CDs from the early 90s which now show pinholes of light coming through if you hold them up to a light source. Obviously, they have data loss. There is no way to tell whether that batch of CDs were weak in some way, or whether they were corroded by handling them or by a solvent like alcohol splashed on them at a party. In this case it seems my license to play the music is fading away. :-( – Stuart Woodward Dec 14 '11 at 21:34
  • Interesting. I wonder if earlier disks used different dye's to modern ones. Will modern CD's/DVD's last longer than those from the 1990's? – hookenz Dec 17 '12 at 20:26
  • @Keith, plastic does not last long. Especially one which supposed to be transparent and not too brittle. – Free Consulting Nov 30 '13 at 09:24
  • I wonder if someone is still curious enough to run accelerated ageing tests on the DVD/BD... – Free Consulting Nov 30 '13 at 09:31
  • I suppose we don't really know until more time passes and someone makes a decent study of old DVDs, but... this is really just an answer to the question "what do people, who are just guessing, and have a strong financial incentive to exaggerate it, think the lifespan of DVD and Blu-ray discs is?" – MGOwen Nov 04 '14 at 11:20
  • you shouldn't compare your experience with a cd to blu-ray. The manufacturing medium is different. Blu-rays use bonded metal for their reflective surface. – John Lord Jun 15 '20 at 04:45
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    @Keith It might be interesting to know what is the longest time after which data can still be extracted *by any means*, though. Because just the inability to read the disk using a normal reader might not necessarily mean that the data is actually lost in terms of forensic reconstructability. For example, it might still be possible to read a disk using an electron microscope, long after it has degraded to the point of not being readable by a normal drive. – DLCom Jan 29 '21 at 14:29