M-Disc File storage Archiving, etc

[Sonik Wiz]

Same here, but I'm just turning 49 soon so I'm expecting wanting to ensure access to some of this original data (my own music projects and projects I've worked on with/for others), as well as all my photography, for at least the next 20 years. At some point though its importance will wane if it's not gifted to someone else who shares in its value.

There will always need to be some form of electromagnetic immune storage solution, and for data these optical discs are the most robust and cost effective. We won't be able to guarantee daily snapshots of the internet to bluray, but critical works of art and documentation can certainly be archived in the event of some natural or human caused catastrophe. I figure for the nominal cost and effort/time necessary, I mind as well keep the things I've created/own digitally archived in a fire safe.

In IT the greatest regrets we see with clients who face some type of intrusion or fire/water catastrophe is lack of robust backups. It serves as a reminder for me to value the things important to me enough to have a functional copy. What that means for each of us is determined by our values and priorities. I have very little of my extensive retail music collection backed up, but it is insured under a specific collectibles plan I carry. If it's lost and I can't get it all back, oh well. But losing the masters of my personal music and pictures -- hell no.

When I worked for a retina specialist everything was paper except for insurance submitance which went through a dial up modem in the wee hours of the morning. Transitioning to EHR was a painful experience esp for the doc. But we had some very good outside IT techs that set up everything horror show proper. Among other things a large server with maybe a dozen HDD's set up in I think RAID 5. Then every night it was backed up to cloud storage, one in the KC area & one in Los Angeles.

My back up needs are a bit more modest. The data drives in my family PC & my AV PC gets cloned every few months so if something conks out I just swap out. And I clone/replace my internal data drives every 5 or so years for something better/bigger. I also keep many copied files on external HDD's via docking stations... these aren't even in daily operation.

And then there's M-Disc. My logic for the M-Disc is what would would be my biggest regret losing should my basement flood or house catch on fire? Easy to ask: what if your house catches on fire and you can't get to them? True but I'm just trying to illustrate my decision making for what I do or don't save to M-Disc.

 

[pat bateman]

I saw a Reddit post saying that verbatim has now kept the label m disc but offering the crappy regular blu-rays rather astonishingly if this post is true.

The short answer is it's probably not true. A German publication reached out to Verbatim regarding this, and Verbatim had an explanation for at least one of the OP's concerns. His other concerns were not valid because they weren't factually accurate, ie, needing a special burner compatible with M Disc (This was the case with DVD but not BDR) and claiming they are using organic discs, as organic disks do not exist above 25GB and are almost impossible to find.

However, when asked, Verbatim clarified that these media were further developments. The technical changes lead to a different appearance and the ability for higher burning speeds, the changed media ID is due to an adaptation to other Verbatim products. Verbatim has already delivered the first modified media at the beginning of 2022.
The data security of the new discs is not inferior to that of the old discs: According to the manufacturer, data should also last 1000 years.

Another user chimes in...

Hopefully this can put closure to the speculation. Our organization is a databank and is a big user of mdisc for archiving. We reached out to Verbatim last week about this Media Identification Code (MID) discrepancy. Here is their reply, in their own words ---- "The creator of the MDisc technology- Millenniata went out of business in 2017, they sold the technology to Mitsubishi, who until 2019 owned Verbatim. Due to this, the stamper ID changed, but the formula & the disc materials stayed the same. Mitsubishi sold Verbatim & all the technologies to CMC in December of 2020. Verbatim is the only company authorized to sell the original technology. Any Millenniata discs available were all produced before 2017 when the company shut down and any other brand is not the original technology." ----- So there it is, mdiscs with either the 'VERBAT' or 'MILLEN' prefix are fine. Just different production periods. Cheers.

Even with all that information, the OP wouldn't edit their post and kept doubling down - which is freaking annoying.

 

[Bluedemon25]

The short answer is it's probably not true. A German publication reached out to Verbatim regarding this, and Verbatim had an explanation for at least one of the OP's concerns. His other concerns were not valid because they weren't factually accurate, ie, needing a special burner compatible with M Disc (This was the case with DVD but not BDR) and claiming they are using organic discs, as organic disks do not exist above 25GB and are almost impossible to find.



Another user chimes in...



Even with all that information, the OP wouldn't edit their post and kept doubling down - which is freaking annoying.

So forgive me if I'm being a little dense here but it would give me great peace of mind to make sure I understand. This was essentially someone unread it who thought they figured something out but were pretty clearly wrong and you guys who know more than I do here on the technical aspects are saying other BS to what the person on Reddit said because it makes no sense for proper mdisk blu-rays so that likely verbatim and this blu-rays that I would get say on Amazon or somewhere else reputable are the legit thing is that correct? Is there anything about that code one supposed to look for a list of letters and numbers to tell that it's the right thing? I just want to know that if I order and burn my precious family memories especially of members that no longer are around which is my main purpose that it's the legit item and going to last if kept appropriately and that I don't have to go through some crazy hunt on a third party market hoping to find a legitimate product. It sounds like you're saying it's all good if you could tell a dense and dumb me explicitly yes or no that it's all good I'd greatly appreciate that thank you.