Quote from: Anonym on March 04, 2022, 18:40:36
Furthermore, a nuclear weapon is not an EMP, that's simply not its primary purpose or even how it works.

I am fully aware it can be an EMP if devised in that way. Not that it would change anything, it's called thermonuclear for a reason -- your puny optical media has no chance.

Quote from: _MT_ on March 04, 2022, 16:05:54
my primary concern is having a functioning drive, not the lifespan of the medium itself. It's not going to break itself while lying in a vault.

Then you better get proper humidity and temperature control inside that vault, because "CD rot" is very real and much more pronounced in the writable media (i.e., not pressed media).

Furthermore, a nuclear weapon is not an EMP, that's simply not its primary purpose or even how it works. It would take mind bending gymnastics to arrive to any logical conclusion where this type of optical media would have any advantage against nuclear. That's actually a well-researched topic, do not try to conflate 5D memory crystals with this type of optical media -- even if these consumer disks survive typical physical damage (i.e., a scratch), the "rot" will undoubtedly kill them in the longer term.

Quote from: Anonym on March 03, 2022, 20:04:20
It can barely survive simple scratches, let alone your hyperbolic nuclear strike (i.e., at least not more than anything else).

The data is encoded in a physical structure. It's therefore not sensitive to EM fields. However, your computer or the drive itself is. It won't survive a direct strike, obviously, but EMP won't harm it.

There are quite a few drives on the market, often external. I use them for archiving a lot. For example, all my accounting from previous years is stored on M-Discs (rated for 1000 years). Really, my primary concern is having a functioning drive, not the lifespan of the medium itself. It's not going to break itself while lying in a vault. And since I typically store small chunks of data, I can apply heavy error correction codes. There is plenty of space.

I need an optical drive to install Windows XP.  I have built many PCs from new components that are still capable of running Windows XP.  Soon as XP is installed, I remove the optical drive to save electricity and wear and tear on the drive.  The author is correct, other than a few crazies that still want to run XP, there is zero need for an optical drive.  Dont even know y people still listen to CD/watch old DVD.  Soon as u rip the contents onto the hard drive, u no longer need the optical player...

I still use my optical drive for CDs. I listen to old music that isn't always readily available digitally, and what is available is not always the best quality or right version/recording I am looking for.

It is also nice to know that I own the specific music that I like. Albums are always coming and going from streaming services.

With that said, I don't have a ton of CDs and only reserve owning the music that I know is troublesome to source. I still use YouTube music for more popular and well-known music.

Quote from: BrendaEM on March 03, 2022, 16:54:44
Just so you know, data stored on an optical disk could survive a nuclear attack.

It can barely survive simple scratches, let alone your hyperbolic nuclear strike (i.e., at least not more than anything else).

I don't understand the article's optical drive hate. I'd guess the author wrote the whole thing on a cellphone.

I still even use my DVD drive. I have old computer games. I have DVD movies that I don't need to rip, store, and back up.

Just so you know, data stored on an optical disk could survive a nuclear attack.