Accessibility of Data Backup on CD-R after 8 to 11 years

Excerpt

With the more widespread introduction of picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) about a decade ago, many institutions would perform long-term storage on archiving systems using tape which they believed to be a trusted and secure archiving method. However, this was disputed by others who set off to use more novel techniques such as the long-term storage on jukeboxes containing large amounts of compact disks, recordable (CD-Rs). For this storage, a major requirement was a long guaranteed lifetime of the CD-R media used. Different manufacturers claimed to meet these long-term storage requirements with their high-end CD-Rs, provided that optimal storage conditions are met. In this study, we wanted to evaluate whether or not CD-Rs could be a valid long-term storage medium for secure medical image data storage. …