So, CD-Rs in particular are very bad with regards to stability because the thing you are writing too is a layer of dye. Some are better than others, but basically all will have that dye brake down and fade over time. The type of plastic in the disk as well, a few Japanese disc producers were notorious for using plastic that had a tendency to absorb moisture form the air that would rapidly cause the disks to degrade.
There are other methods of writing though. CD-RWs for instance are much more stable as instead of burning away a bit of volatile dye layer, they are writing to a layer of metal alloy by melting it a little to change it’s crystal structure.
The same is true with recordable blue rays, with Low to High disks using the same sort of dye burning as CD-Rs, High to Low disks use a variety of different mechanisms to write, but some use a similar melty metal as CD-RWs.
Honestly, invest in a Blu-ray writer and pick up some decent 25gb discs.
Not only can you play old games, but you can archive data in a relatively stable format at a much lower price point.
I had read at one point many years ago that CD-Rs degrade over time and are not good for long term backups. Is this wrong or are Blurays different?
So, CD-Rs in particular are very bad with regards to stability because the thing you are writing too is a layer of dye. Some are better than others, but basically all will have that dye brake down and fade over time. The type of plastic in the disk as well, a few Japanese disc producers were notorious for using plastic that had a tendency to absorb moisture form the air that would rapidly cause the disks to degrade.
There are other methods of writing though. CD-RWs for instance are much more stable as instead of burning away a bit of volatile dye layer, they are writing to a layer of metal alloy by melting it a little to change it’s crystal structure.
The same is true with recordable blue rays, with Low to High disks using the same sort of dye burning as CD-Rs, High to Low disks use a variety of different mechanisms to write, but some use a similar melty metal as CD-RWs.