Also called
life expectancy or
shelf life, the time it takes for a data-storing medium to lose half of its strength.
Floppy disks and magnetic
hard drives have a half life of between five and seven years. Optical media, such as
CD-Rs, have a half life of about 30 years.
The term comes from the scientific fields where it means the amount of time it takes for half of something to undergo a process or the amount of time it takes for half of the atoms of a radioactive substance to disintegrate.
