M-DISC – DVD/Blu-ray compatible discs that may last up to 1000 years

Verbatim, who owns M-Disc, doesn't even manufacture discs anymore. They just slap their brand on other peoples discs.

The discs sold as M-Discs now are actually just MABL BD-R's. They used to have a 'stone' data layer. Now they use a titanium metal data layer. MABL discs were always designed to last for about 100 years, and are orders of magnitude cheaper.

100 years is long enough, and 1000 years was always a wild-ass theoretical abstraction. The point is that you'll be dead before your disc is. If the next generation cares and drives are still available they can copy it to a new source.

These same discs are sold with a "Guarantee" as archival discs that are tested with heat/stress to last that 100 years, but any MABL disc really should,and they're much cheaper if you just get regular MABL discs. I think Pioneer is one of the big brands making the archival discs, or at least branding them. I last had to import mine from Japan. If you check the disc ID though, you'll see that archival discs are literally the same disc you can by cheaper without that label.

Some M-Discs still have a proprietary disc label, but my understanding is that even those just come off the same lines.

Some reading:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/yu4j1u/psa_ver...

https://blu-raydisc.info/licensee-list/discmanuid-licenseeli... (search for verbatim and note the manufacturer column)

The 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.

I have a few of these drives. They also rip discs very accurately. Bit-identical to my Plextor, at a fraction of the price. But sadly no ripping software offers these the verification logging that is required for redump approval.

> Verbatim Japan claims that M-DISCs now use a titanium layer to prevent moisture ingression and to provide environmental stability

From what I understand, Verbatim no longer manufactures true M-DISC media. https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/1i0ky6v/what_h...

It's all just MABL now.

I wonder why every types of discs seem to be entering a de facto deprecated state over the last ~10 years, especially inorganic types are. Is it simply because everyone's on Netflix? Or could it be environmental/material cost issues?

I believe these discs are made by transferring materials by vaporizing them in a series of big vacuum chambers, maybe those materials are toxic and/or China dominated and nobody wants to deal with them anymore?

I bought 3 burners and burn 2x copies of every 100GB disc. Only Verbatim burners seem to not fail with 50+Gb discs. By the way!

Every 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.

1000 years means it's only good for archival purposes, or are people gonna bank on when they pass it on to their loved ones, they'd keep more and more junk instead of using a new medium?

Blu-ray again. It's always blu-ray.

This is the only storage media I trust to outlive me. Everything else, including paper, will degrade.

Even the largest 100GB disk seems too small nowadays

> 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 ?