A: You've already taken an important first step by purchasing quality discs from a trusted distributor. Disc quality is the single biggest influence on the longevity of your data. (For more information on disc quality, read Not all DVD-Rs, CD-Rs Are Created Equal and Your CD-R and DVD-R Questions Answered, both of which are great primers on this topic.)
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First, let's take a quick look at what we're protecting:
CD-Rs and DVD-Rs work by burning pits into the dye layer of the disc. If anything happens to this layer or the reflective layer, your data is gone.
To get the maximum life from your archival discs, here's what you need to do:
Protect your disc from light.
CD-Rs and DVD-Rs are photosensitive. Normal office light or other ambient light isn't going to affect your discs. We're talking about actual sunlight, very bright lights or very hot lights.
1. Ultraviolet rays (which exists in sunlight) can react with your disc's recording dye in a manner similar to the way a laser would.
2. Sunlight can create enough heat to accelerate the breakdown of the dye layer of the disc.
Protect your disc from extreme changes in heat or humidity.
Discs are actually pretty resilient in a wide range of temperature and humidity conditions, but you don't want to store your discs in an area that bounces between extremes. Also, keeping your discs in a cooler, less-humid area helps protect the dye layer.
Protect your disc from scratches.
Polycarbonate is actually pretty tough but, with too many scratches or nicks, your DVD or CD player's laser won't be able to focus on the bits of information on the disc, so it will be unreadable.
Protect your discs from warping and bending.
Store your discs vertically (like a book). Prolonged horizontal storage can warp a disc, making it so it can't spin properly in the drive or allow a laser to properly follow the tracks.
Here's what I recommend, select an opaque disc case, preferably made from polypropylene. Polypropylene is what we call chemically non-aggressive, which means it won't react with your disc, literature or label. Also, polypropylene is a "clean" plastic and is recyclable, so it's also a responsible choice.
The very best option for archiving, is probably Univenture's UniKeep disc binders. The UniKeeps are opaque, 100% polypropylene and are very "square" which makes them really easy to place on shelves.
You'll also want to take care with your labeling. Never use adhesive labels for long-term (more than 5 years) archiving. Labels can peel apart over time, which could interfere with your disc drive. Also, attempting to remove the label could cause the disc to become "unbalanced" making it unreadable.
For additional information, I suggest you read The Care and Handling of CDs and DVDs: A Guide for Librarians and Archivists by Fred R. Byers. It was written in 2003 for the Council on Library and Information Resources and the recommendations for storage are still very accurate.
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