For backup purposes, should I completely give up CD/DVDs and go for portable / external hdd?
It seems to me that the CD degradation issue is more serious than I thought. After 6~8 years, about one third of my CD collections start showing damaged / bad sectors (they are from mixed brands, Sony, Maxell, Philips, TDK, … ). And, it is a tedious job to scan them one by one.
Nowadays the portable / external hdd is so cheap. Compared to DVDs, it is still about twice of the price for the same capacity, but it is much faster to write and read, rewritable, And it is very easy to check integrity for the entire drive. Life span probably does not make much difference since there is too much uncertainty in the manufacturer’s statement, so I see they are about the same (>5 years, < 30 years?)
One thing I don’t like about the external hard drives is the capacity is too large (say, 750G, 1T) for a price comparable to blank DVDs. If I drop one by accident, all is gone.
So, does it make sense to give up CD /DVDs? what else should I consider? Many thanks for your input!