As some of you may know, I like to keep my backups in CD-RWs and DVD+RWs
and the issue of media reliability is one to take into account when doing
the backups, just to see if you can restore the backup that you made.
I recently discovered one excellent program already packaged for Debian,
called dvdisaster. I would recommend it to anybody interested in seeing how
(un)reliable your CDs/DVDs are.
It can also create extra data (redundant data) to further read the data in
the future (in the undesired event of bad media).
Well, just wanted to spread the good news.