The Best Archival CDs and DVDs

An essential part of a disaster recovery plan is backing up data on a regular basis and storing it at an off site location. IT departments typically use tape backup systems to do this. However in offices without dedicated IT staff or with constrained budgets, computer file backup is often performed with CD-ROMs or DVDs.

There's a dirty little secret when it comes to writable CDs and DVDs - they don't last forever, and all brands are not created equal when it comes to reliability.

Patrick McFarland has an excellent and quite detailed article on choosing the best brands of CDs and DVDs for archiving data. If you don't have time to read the rather lengthy article, his top pick is anything made by the Japanese company Taiyo Yuden (Verbatim and TDK often use their media).