M-Disc for data back up? Optical may not be dead after all.

By chance, I just discovered a thing called "M-Disc"

Not sure what cave I've been stuck in, but as often repeated on this forum for oh, about 8 years or so, you can quote me saying over and over "Hard drives are the only reasonable archival storage for RAW files"

Enter M-Disk.

U.S. Navy has tested and adopted them, relying on the 1,000 year archival rating.

I did not add an extra zero, yes Virginia, rated fro 1,000 years.

Capacity still a problem?
Not so much.

Originally Available in 4.5GB DVD size, they are also now available in 25gb, 100gb and soon 50gb Blu Ray Disk capacities.

Of course you need an M-Disk compatible writer, but most DVD and Blu ray readers should read the written disks.

Cost per MB and time taken to write to multiple disks to archive an entire multi TB RAW library suddenly becomes reasonable again, with 100GB disks and a promise of 1,000 year life span.

ie: unlike standard CD-R DVD-R etc. no more leap frogging and re-re-writing every few years. In this case, do it once and you should be good for generations. (maybe buy an extra drive and seal it in the same fire proof safe eh? ) Adding 50 or 100GB at a time as new raw files are created seems very reasonable.

Anyway, as I said I just found it. I was looking to buy a DVD/BD-R for my PC and came across them by accident. I've only just installed it, so no experience yet, but if all goes well, I will have another methid for archiving, on site and off site. It couldn't hurt?

Interesting! Keep us posted.

YES!! Good find! I see the Verbatim 25pack for even less - $59. I always had luck with them since 3.5 floppies so I'd probably stick with that brand.

I have a ~2 year old Pioneer Blu-Ray internal drive, so I'm guessing it won't support this. Or will it? One reviewer wrote:

The blu-ray versions of this M-Disc don't need a special M-Disc capable burner

p.s. looks like they're correct. Right on the Verbatim page: "M DISC BD-R media requires no special drives for recording or playback."

I may get a 5-pack just to try.

https://en.wikipedia.o​rg/wiki/M-DISC

"Conventional DVD-R and BD-R LTH (Low To High) use recording layers of organic dye and separate reflective layers.[12] Standard (HTL) BD-R and BD-R/DL (except LTH BD-R[13]) typically use inorganic data layers, but continue using a reflective layer. M-DISC BD-R has no reflective layer.[14] M-DISC uses a single inorganic recording layer, which is substantially inert to oxygen, but requires a higher-powered laser. M-DISC DVD does not require the reflective layer. Thus, both the M-DISC and inorganic BD-R physically alter the recording layer, burning a permanent hole in the material. Besides physical damage, failure of the reflective layer, followed closely by degradation of the data layer, are the primary failure modes of all optically recordable disks.

Recorded discs are readable in conventional drives. Available recording capacities are similar to other optical media from 4.7GB DVD-R to 25GB, 50GB BD-R and 100GB BD-XL. At first in DVD and Blu-ray M-Discs there was difficulty distinguishing the writable side of the disc, so they added color to distinguish the sides and make it look like the coloring on standard DVD or Blu-ray media.

LG Electronics, ASUS and Lite-On [15] produce drives that can record M-DISC media. Ritek produces M-DISC Blu-ray disc media, sold under the Imation, Ritek and M-DISC brands. Verbatim produces co-branded discs, marketed as the "Verbatim M-Disc"

http://www.pcworld.com …for-a-thousand-years.html

http://www.zdnet.com …esting-the-1000-year-dvd/

https://www.engadget.c​om …hands-on-for-a-few-minut/

Worth $16 for a 5-pck just to try. https://www.amazon.com …ded-Surface/dp/B011PZAHTM

No special burner needed. I'll let you know how they work out. Damn, I just bought a 25pack of regular BD-R 25GB discs a few months ago.

Update: my old-ish Pioneer BD drive is compatible! Compatibility chart for the Verbatim discs

Thanks again for bringing this to our attention. I'm thrilled to have something even more reliable than BD-R. Durable, easy to store, impossible to erase accidentally, etc. I'm a big fan of optical backups.

I think you need to check if your burner is M-Disk compatible. Anything should READ them, you need M-Disk to burn them. The require a more powerful laser to write, as instead of heating dye, they are actually punching a hole in the carbon layer.

EDIT, I posted before I read your edit

We had them on some "work" Dell computers about 4 years ago, and at that time the dedicated burners (usually LG) were slow being only 8X and using USB 2. Perhaps they have improved, although for archival purposes time may not matter. In addition to exceed the typical DVD capacity (something short of 5 GB) you had to use BD-R media (25 GB) and some burners and burning software were not compatible. You could have a 25 GB disk, but you only ended up with the more or less 5 GB regardless of what you were archiving. We used Roxio software becuase at the time there wasn't much else.

On my current computer/burner, I just use the default Windows 10 software built in. I just insert a 25GB disc, wait 5 seconds and it asks me what files I want to write. Drag, drop, name the disc and hit burn. Nice and simple.

You might want to read the article at http://www.pcworld.com …for-a-thousand-years.html for various caveats. The article is two years old so things may be better with a very new PC, but then again as the author of the article points out maybe not.

I don't really see any drawbacks from what I see in reviews and on Verbatim's site, and the equipment I'm using.

Excited as I am about these, I wouldn't be surprised if I just stick with the normal 25GB BD-Rs. I really only need them to last maybe 10 years, because after that time we're pretty much guaranteed some crazy new technology that is faster, better, and a whole lot meaner to my wallet.

Yes, I read that one (and linked to it above)
I've got 3 types of disk coming from Amazon in a few days. Will give it all a try.

I got 1: 100GB Verbatim, 3 25GB Verbatim and 3 25GB Millennium on the way. Will see which if any work with the new drive I just installed.

My needs will most likely be the 100GB disks for the big RAW archive,. and some of the 4.5 M-DVD-R maybe. Forgot to grab some of those to test

It's funny how I thought 100GB was overkill. Then I got a 5D4. Then came back from vacation with 24GB of files. It adds up quick!

I've got terabytes of RAW files on multiple hard drives.

Using 100GB disks it will likely take the better part of a day to archive it all to M-Disk, but then it will be small incremental additions thereafter.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #18431147
...but then it will be small incremental additions thereafter.

That is key. But hard for a procrastinator like me to stay on top of.

Doesn't hurt to have a second backup on optical. If the discs really can approach expected life expectancy, then the computer software and hardware formats will have gone and surpassed it for many generations! I remember when CD came out, they were quoting really long life expectancy for the physical media....but quite a few commercial audio CDs succumbed to a particular chemical reaction with the cardboard packaging (or so was one possible reason bandied about).

Compact Disc Bronzing