I just read this interesting article about the life span of CD media. (http://msn.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,124312,00.asp?GT1=7645)
They are determining that the life of a burned CD is not that long, and that you should either reburn the media every few years or use Tape. Over the course of the last few years, I have gone away from tape. This is due to Tape being expensive, and difficult to manage. It is really easy to burn a DVD or CD to backup my pictures / files and store them. If the Media is unable to last, like the article says. I may have to move to some alternative methods.
Methods may be
1. Raid hard drives
2. Network shares
3. Online backup solutions (I like Mozy)
4. Newer Tape drives.