Eurythmic
majordomo plasticomo
Oh, it's nothing to do with the life of the CDRs themselves... it's the swapping in and out of the comptuer, going constantly in and out of binders and cases... some of them are lightly scratched now, and a few are pretty well scuffed.
Well, you know what they say - data doesn't exist unless it's in more than one place. It's just another storage solution. It's more convenient, and my CDRs would be in better shape if I didn't have to use them so much. CDRs are so much more fragile than pressed CDs.
It isn't necessarily that a hard drive would be any more reliable over time... but on the other hand, my 3GB hard drive was made in 1995, and although it could quit at any moment, today it's still going strong (knock on wood). Many of the CDs that I purchased 6-9 years ago are damn near unreadable today.
CDs are so durable and so easily replaceable (and, well, I'm so lazy, I guess) that I often won't think twice about leaving one out and uncovered for a little while. As my record collection has grown, though, I've made a more concious effort to never touch the undersides of my CDs, and to always replace them when they're done playing. And yet, many of them still have light scratches. I don't know why, but it never fails to happen.