Even the largest 100GB disk seems too small nowadays
M-DISC – DVD/Blu-ray compatible discs that may last up to 1000 years
11–20 of 104 posts
Re: M-DISC – DVD/Blu-ray compatible discs that may last up to 1000 years
#12The drives to read them (Blu-rays) will be the problem. Pioneer stopped manufacturing them in 2024, only LG drives are available now. Coincidentally I just bought one, they’ve doubled in price now recently. Also bought some M-Discs to try. They’re half the price in Japan (Amazon) compared to Germany.
In a 1000 years even if they don’t have the drives, as long as they still know roughly how it works maybe they will photograph it with a microscope and read the tracks in the M-Disc from that. Then they will have to decode it also of course.
Re: M-DISC – DVD/Blu-ray compatible discs that may last up to 1000 years
#13The drives to read them (Blu-rays) will be the problem. Pioneer stopped manufacturing them in 2024, only LG drives are available now. Coincidentally I just bought one, they’ve doubled in price now recently. Also bought some M-Discs to try. They’re half the price in Japan (Amazon) compared to Germany.
In a 1000 years even if they don’t have the drives, as long as they still know roughly how it works maybe they will photograph it with a microscope and read the tracks in the M-Disc from that. Then they will have to decode it also of course.
Maybe. The question is why are we needing to read these disks in a thousand years. I would guess right now that the most likely case is information we care about is archived on modern formats such as hard drives, which are constantly being copied to different drives as the old ones go out and so in a thousand years they'll still have all the data in a much more accessible format than a very obsolete disk.
If, instead, we are talking about some human disaster and, that constant copies is lost at some point, we're kind of stuck. I don't think the technology to read those disks will exist either, even though in theory, yes, that could be done. It would be a massive reverse engineering effort and I don't think they will even know to start doing that with these weird disks that the agents had.
If you want something archived for a thousand years, well, we know that clay tablets baked worked, although we sometimes can't read the letters but at least seeing something with the eyes says there's something and if there's enough of them we have decoded language.
The best archival paper in ideal conditions lasts more than a thousand years, but in more typical storage, we can't store paper that long. Paper has only been stored successfully in Egypt for that long. I'm sure there are other deserts though that would count just as well.
Re: M-DISC – DVD/Blu-ray compatible discs that may last up to 1000 years
#14Every few years or so I flirt with the idea of backing up to M-Disks. Then I remember how slow and low density they are.
For recording and forgetting, I recently played with LTO, again.
But I always end up at local HDD + remote AWS Glacier.
Re: M-DISC – DVD/Blu-ray compatible discs that may last up to 1000 years
#15This is the only storage media I trust to outlive me. Everything else, including paper, will degrade.
Re: M-DISC – DVD/Blu-ray compatible discs that may last up to 1000 years
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
In a 1000 years even if they don’t have the drives, as long as they still know roughly how it works maybe they will photograph it with a microscope and read the tracks in the M-Disc from that. Then they will have to decode it also of course.
Maybe. The question is why are we needing to read these disks in a thousand years. I would guess right now that the most likely case is information we care about is archived on modern formats such as hard drives, which are constantly being copied to different drives as the old ones go out and so in a thousand years they'll still have all the data in a much more accessible format than a very obsolete disk. If, instead…
Issue with storage is you need shelf stability without ongoing electrical/mechanical work refreshing data time to time. Masked ROMs and M-Discs are those two things which can really last a very long time; Floppies, Hard Disks, Solid State Storage and present day ROMs all require periodic costs, efforts and refreshes to keep them going (that means they can't be kept in storage and then re-opened in 30 years).
We also need a mechanism that outlasts that archival lifespan so how to read Discs or Masked ROMs and how to interpret them, also needs to be stored as well. Repairing electronics is a valuable skill that needs to be passed on across generations as well.
Keeping humans around seems to be the best bet, given how things are going, I wouldn't count on the present set of beings around to preserve any of this information that well either.
Re: M-DISC – DVD/Blu-ray compatible discs that may last up to 1000 years
#17Every few years or so I flirt with the idea of backing up to M-Disks. Then I remember how slow and low density they are. For recording and forgetting, I recently played with LTO, again. But I always end up at local HDD + remote AWS Glacier.
AWS Glacier is mostly just LTO done for you with exponentially less risk.
Re: M-DISC – DVD/Blu-ray compatible discs that may last up to 1000 years
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
In a 1000 years even if they don’t have the drives, as long as they still know roughly how it works maybe they will photograph it with a microscope and read the tracks in the M-Disc from that. Then they will have to decode it also of course.
Maybe. The question is why are we needing to read these disks in a thousand years. I would guess right now that the most likely case is information we care about is archived on modern formats such as hard drives, which are constantly being copied to different drives as the old ones go out and so in a thousand years they'll still have all the data in a much more accessible format than a very obsolete disk. If, instead…
I think 1,000 years maybe doesn't matter that much. However, these predictions are imperfect. If they're aiming for 1,000 years, that makes me more confident the disc will be readable in 100 years, which may matter more.
Re: M-DISC – DVD/Blu-ray compatible discs that may last up to 1000 years
#19Every few years or so I flirt with the idea of backing up to M-Disks. Then I remember how slow and low density they are. For recording and forgetting, I recently played with LTO, again. But I always end up at local HDD + remote AWS Glacier.
AWS Glacier is mostly just LTO done for you with exponentially less risk.
I’m sad they’re retiring Snowball soon, though.
Re: M-DISC – DVD/Blu-ray compatible discs that may last up to 1000 years
#20> M-DISC – DVD/Blu-ray compatible discs citation needed. My DVD/Blu-ray writer does not support M-DISC > may last up to 1000 years or may not. Who knows ?
The discs are entirely compliant with the Blu-Ray spec, there is no “compatibility” mark; anything made in the past 10-15 years should work fine. Your writer may be out of spec? Apparently original M-Disc DVDs required a more powerful laser than normal, but that is not the case for Blu-Ray.
There is licensing and a compatibility mark, and I distinctly recall that my Philips BD-XL writer was badged for M-DISC and touted its capabilities.
https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/new-m-disc-to-pro...
I ran Linux backups on BD-XL 100GB discs for awhile. I lacked access to space in a salt mine, and the M-DISC media was prohibitively expensive, and unnecessary, since the Linux system, its drives, and its backups have all gone away by now. And nothing of value was lost.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-DISC#History
As of the 2020s, there are only 2 licensed manufacturers of M-Discs: Ritek, sold under the Ritek and RiDATA brands, and Verbatim with co-branded discs, marketed as the "Verbatim M-DISC".[14][15]