Interesting.
As it happens, I asked at my local computer store
what CD-Rs would last the longest.  I was sent to
the tech department.  The tech department didn't
know either.  I specifically asked whether gold-
toned disks were better and they had no idea.

Luk

I buy TDK or HP CDRs for 0.20c each, either 50 for $10 spindle or
10 for $4 w/jewel cases.
Make 2 or more copies.

this for the OP or me Joan?

 You really can't compare those devices with CDs and DVDs.  Almost
all of their owners used them for portability, transferring large
amounts of data before broadband internet became common, etc.  I own
Zip and Syquest drives and would never consider using them for
archival purposes, partly because the capacities weren't all that
great, but mainly because the media was way too expensive.  For the
price of a single 270MB Syquest disk I could buy a handful of tapes,
and each tape could easily hold more data than a dozen Syquest
disks.  Tapes were not only much faster, but had enough capacity to
backup an entire hard drive at night, unattended.  No staying by the
computer to keep feeding in one disk cartridge after another.

 The point is, those drives were not bought in large numbers by
computer owners, and that's why you don't see them today.  CDs and
DVDs on the other hand, are included with just about every new
computer sold.  That can't even be said for floppy drives, so you're
wrong there.  The HP computer I recently bought has NO floppy drive,
nor has it a bay to hold one.  If I need a floppy I'll have to buy
an external USB model.

 The CDs we use today may not be sold 30 or 40 years from now, but
their wide use has encouraged manufacturers to develop DVD drives
that can not only read, but also write to CD media.  There's the
possibility that whatever replaces today's DVD drives will continue
along the compatibility path.  This was *not* true for Zip, Syquest
and Bernoulli disk cart's.  There was some backwards *read*
compatibility, but usually no *write* compatibility.  Of course for
old archived disks, all you really need is to be able to read them,
and this is no problem because CDs and DVDs are cheap and not
intended to be reused.  Those old disk cartridges created a problem
for their owners because they were so expensive.  If they owned
several dozen of them, a new higher capacity drive meant a new a
large expenditure for a bunch of new cartridges.  CD and DVD owners
haven't yet had this problem.

No, the 1.44MB drive isn't in all PCs. It's old technomlgy.
I just looked at Dell, as an example, and 3.5" floppies are listed as
available on most systems, but not included.

Neither my sons pc or my one has a floppy disk drive and if i Had one how
would I get even one quality photo on it ?

Not easy but two suggestions- buy name brand, and in some brands they
sell "premium" longer lasting ones.  One brand has a gold plating
coating that is supposed to aid lifetime.

Also, important suggestions- be careful about labeling.  I used those
adhesive labels made for disks.  Then heard that these are bad-
adhesive leaches into disk plastic.  Sure enough, every one of the
disks I had done that way went bad in about a year.  I now buy
labelable disks for my Epson printer which will print on CDs, or use a
CD/DVD-safe marking pen, bought at computer store, for less important
disks.

CDs and DVDs are not good viable long term storage. Their life spans are
much less than marketing would like to tell you. A few years if your really
luck. Not decades. Your best bet is to back up to CD (not DVD they are even
less reliable for long term storage) and a hard drive. Do new backups to
both mediums every 6 months or so depending on how many images you
accumulate. Myself I end up with about 6,000 images a month so I do new
backups every month to both CD and hard drive. The hard drive is a USB 2
drive that is only connected and powered when I do that backup. Once the
backup is done I unhook it and put it back in the vault.

R