RetroGaming

Just on the issue of disc rot, I feel like I have something to add to the conversation that's more than a personal anecdote.

For many years I worked as a game developer and I did tons of multimedia software, it would not be an exaggeration to say that in my career I personally oversaw the burning of over 100,000 discs, and that's not counting manufacturing or high-run final product.

There's actually a pretty high failure rate, even on new disks. Most that are about 7 years have a 50% failure rate, anything after 10 years if you're lucky you can use software.

In the above examples I'm talking about discs that the consumer grade hardware can burn. It doesn't matter that we used the highest quality equipment, it really doesn't change the formula. Commercially made ones have a much higher durability, somewhere around double.

So basically any disk you own, regardless of where and when it was made, you've got 15 to 20 years at best and then it's nothing but a crap shoot.