Verbatim CD-R 700MB 52X UltraLife Gold Archival Grade - Branded Surface & Hard Coat - 50pk Spindle

I've used a lot of cheap blanks in my day. I remember first stumbling upon Maxell XLII's cassettes and remembering how great they were with music...quality you could hear, back then. With digital, I didn't give a lot of thought to the blanks...I thought "digital is forever". Well, yes and no. Hard drives crash. The cloud is still, well, the cloud. How many different media services have you seen start up like gangbusters and go under? So, I always would burn optical backups of programs, documents and pics. Now, in reviewing some of my older stuff, it's clear, that the cheaper blanks I used haven't held up well. It's not like I leave them in a car, or anything, but, even then, some data would be undreadable...some audio-cd's would de-laminate. There is some thought that the "gold" layer on these won't suffer those same problems. So, while I will have to wait 10 years to truly judge, I can say that Verbatims I've burned in the past, have held up well...their dye is quite good. The no-name generics, well, they've struggled. So, it stands to reason that Verbatim's top of the line "gold" standard would do just as well if not better than prior Verbatims.And while I can re-rip music, my personal documents and photos would be impossible to replace. I no longer have "film" backups to go back to for my pictures, hence my interest in archival quality media.If I want to trust my data for life, I am sure to keep it in different formats and on different media...anything important, I burn to these archival gold...as some memories, can't be recreated.

I thought that these would work on a CD Recorder, but they do not. However, when making copies of a completed CD by ripping to Legacy Windows Media Player, (be sure to select the highest bit-rate setting), they do provide first rate archival copies. They expected dark-storage life is said to exceed 200 years. That certainly long enough to match Bern Convention Copyright (Life Plus 125 Years), and protect one's rights well into the 4th generation of one's family, when needed for proof. They're relatively inexpensive, given their lifespan, and actually do have a gold layer. (Gold does not readily oxidize or form chlorides).

Good quality blank CDs. I use them to burn music CDs to listen to my favorite music in my car in high fidelity that you can't get from radio or cassette. The plain unlabeled surface lets me write on the label side of the disk without writing over other stuff. If you really want something to last for a really loooooong time, you need M-discs (and a special CD drive that can burn them), but these are still better quality and longer lasting than standard blank CDs.

I had been looking for this kind of Verbatim CD-R for some years since I saw a spindle on eBay many years ago. However, I chanced upon this spindle of UltraLife CD-Rs just this year. I promptly bought a pack and started using it for valuable recordings.The CD-Rs are shiny gold discs fit for treasured recordings or data. They remind you of gold disc awards when a music release sells 500,000 copies. After recording on a few of these discs, they record effectively and play well on any audio CD machine. Whether they last well is another matter.There are some improvements I would have liked Verbatim to make for these discs. Firstly, I would have liked it if the discs were customisable. The label surfaces are plain gold and have no protective coating. If you want to label your discs, you might have to write with a marker and deface the beautiful shiny gold surface. It would be good if Verbatim could consider making this UltraLife CD-R with a printable label surface and a metallised hub. This will make the discs look like the professional CD-Rs. Also, I am a bit worried about the durability of the product. The recording dye might be the usual cyanine dye on the typical CD-R. I know that you can never tell how well a burn lasts, but I am worried the dye may not be worthy of the product quality. Also, the polycarbonate plastic that is used for these discs is soft like most commercial CD-Rs. For a premium-grade CD-R like this, the plastic needs to be thicker and stiffer. Verbatim already has MediDisc CD-Rs with thick, stiff plastic. If you're paying more for these CD-Rs, the product quality needs to be higher than the more everyday discs. These improvements are only small things and I hope Verbatim can consider them as options for people who want to buy the UltraLife CD-Rs in the future.In general, I am satisfied with the burns I've done so far on these discs. They still record well on my burners and sound god on my players. I am hoping that Verbatim could add a little more to this product so it can feel more durable and assure customers their burns will last on these discs.

These cds are at a pretty good price for a gold archival disc . I could not give 5 stars longevity because they sould outlast my life time .

Inserted one in my DVD-R recorder and it wouldn't play. Inserted another and had the same outcome. Returned the item. FYI: Noted on the label that it was manufactured in the United Arab Emirates.

I chose these CDs because I wanted to backup photos. Most CDs decline over time, and are thus not good for long term storage. Gold CDs are called archival because they last much longer. Obviously I do not know yet if this will work over time, but I will use these as one more way to protect my digital photos. This quality is not readily available at retail, so I chose Amazon as a good source.

Ran out of Archival Quality CD Disks for a project i was working on and placed order on Saturday and received CD's Monday AM by Fed Ex as promised. Saved me since project was due early Tuesday AM. Delivered as promised and price was excellent. Did not mind paying extra for expedited shipment since these archival disks are difficult to find at any retail or office supply stores.