Backing up CDs

[xvgi]

Firstly, what a great program! I’d heard about Imgburn for years but only recently installed it and tried it out. I previously tried EAC but found it too complex for my needs.

 

This is my question if anyone would be so kind as to venture an opinion:

 

I have hundreds of audio CDRs containing music I’ve ripped here and there and stuff other people have given me. I know CDR technology is unreliable and somewhere down the line I might find the CDs unplayable. So I need to back up on an external HD.

 

Now I am familiar with Imgburn it’s occured to me that I should just go through my CDRs, create BIN/CUE files from them and then store the BIN/CUEs on my external HD. And then if the day ever comes when I find I can’t play a CDR I just go find the relevant BIN/CUE file and burn another CD.

 

It seems like a no-brainer to me but before I take the plunge (this job will take a long time) I thought I’d just run it past the good people here. Do other people do this? I can’t see any problem with it (assuming that BIN/CUEs aren’t suddenly going to become obsolete at some point).

 

One last thing, is there any easy way of understanding the diff between BIN/CUEs and ISOs? From what I can tell, BIN/CUEs tend to be used for audio, and ISO for other data. Is that about it?

 

Thanks to anyone who might like to comment....

[LIGHTNING UK!]

ISO is ok for single session/track 'Mode 1' data images.

 

For everything else, another format should be used.

 

BIN/CUE is one such 'other format' - but really it's just for CDs.

 

If you have enough space to 'backup' all your Audio CDs in BIN/CUE format on one or more hdds, that's fine.

[xvgi]

Thanks for the reply, Lightning