M discs? So i have heard talk of these M Discs. Are these more advanced discs to hold pictures? Can you put these in any DVD drive or does it have to be a special drive? If i was to go...

dblackard Loc: Rockport Texas

So i have heard talk of these M Discs. Are these more advanced discs to hold pictures? Can you put these in any DVD drive or does it have to be a special drive? If i was to go the disc route in saving pictures would these be the way to go??

ecobin Loc: Paoli, PA

dblackard wrote:

So i have heard talk of these M Discs. Are these more advanced discs to hold pictures? Can you put these in any DVD drive or does it have to be a special drive? If i was to go the disc route in saving pictures would these be the way to go??

I belong to a Mac users group which meets monthly. At the last meeting there was a presentation on backing up your computer as well as storing valuable items (financial info, photos, etc.). The key information that I took away was that current storage media (external back-up hard drives and discs) all deteriorate over time and should be re-backup'd every two years. That's a lot of work and cost and most people will ignore. There was no mention of M disc and I had not heard of it until your question.

I found these web sites very informative. A 4.7GB M disc is less than $3 if purchased in a package of 75. It'll last 1,000 years! You'll need a new burner that does M discs. Personally, I'll wait for an M external hard drive to appear. Thanks for your question!

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/92286-m-disc-is-a-dvd-made-out-of-stone-that-lasts-1000-

http://store.millenniata.com/default.aspx

dblackard Loc: Rockport Texas

thanks for the info. interesting article. i guess it really all comes down to doesnt matter what you save to today, with technology changing so rapidly we will have to save to other mediums constantly.

DennisK Loc: Pickle City,Illinois

dblackard wrote:

thanks for the info. interesting article. i guess it really all comes down to doesnt matter what you save to today, with technology changing so rapidly we will have to save to other mediums constantly.

I think that is why he suggested an EXTERNAL burner.If you have to change your computer in the future,and had a M disc burner,but now the newer computers have advanced beyond M disc,at least you could still read your archives.....if it would be still connectible.

Merlin1300 Loc: New England, But Now & Forever SoTX

dblackard wrote:

So i have heard talk of these M Discs. Are these more advanced discs to hold pictures? Can you put these in any DVD drive or does it have to be a special drive? If i was to go the disc route in saving pictures would these be the way to go??

Optical media can't really compete with current HDD prices. I have a 3TB fault-tolerant RAID-5 array on my production computer, and a 9TB fault-tolerant RAID-5 Network Attached Storage as backup. Initial cost (assuming $0.25 per DVD disk) was equivalent to using dye based DVD backup (10-year shelf life), and back-up time as well as file indexing and retrieval considerations easily put the HDD solution head and shoulders above the DVD solution. Now you add in the cost of this fancy NEW optical media at nearly 30x current dye based technology and the HDD solution is the EASY winner.
.
I'm just waiting for the holographic, laser-based, crystalline cube storage media capable of holding 10TB in a 1cm^2 cube - - -

Jer Loc: Mesa, Arizona

I read this blog and did some research. I bought a some m-disks and a portable drive. The concept looks good. You get a lot of software with the drive. I did have a little problem getting the drive to recognize the m-disks from one of the software programs. So I load the disk in win8 and a screen message pops up asking me what I want to do. Then I choose burn disk and it works fine. But like I said, I just got the drive and disks today. So I expect I'll learn more about these special DVD's. The company hasn't come out with a blu-ray version yet, even though, the payer is a blue ray player. Remember you have to have a drive that says M-Drive on the box. The laser has to be stronger than a regular dvd burner to etch the information into the surface. I also tried the DVD's on two regular DVD drives and they worked great. I'm still going to keep backups on hard drives and some other disks.
Do research on your own and see what you all think.

dblackard wrote:

So i have heard talk of these M Discs. Are these more advanced discs to hold pictures? Can you put these in any DVD drive or does it have to be a special drive? If i was to go the disc route in saving pictures would these be the way to go??

Merlin1300 Loc: New England, But Now & Forever SoTX

Jer wrote:

I bought a some m-disks and a portable drive. Do research on your own and see what you all think.

Jer: What are you using these disks for? Are you looking for the 100 year shelf life for archival purposes ? The question there is will there exist players for that type of media 100 years from now ? Even if you put a spare player drive in a plastic bag, will there be an EIDE computer interface (or SATA - whatever) if and when you need to recover the data from an M-Disk ?

deej

Merlin1300 wrote:

Jer: What are you using these disks for? Are you looking for the 100 year shelf life for archival purposes ? The question there is will there exist players for that type of media 100 years from now ? Even if you put a spare player drive in a plastic bag, will there be an EIDE computer interface (or SATA - whatever) if and when you need to recover the data from an M-Disk ?

I use m-disc and personally it is another form of backup to other digital media. The archived family heirloom pics being one of the chosen keepers on m-disc. True, like another posting that discusses this in length, what will the future bring in storage we have yet to find out. The better bet is finding and using a consistent current technological media while upgrading our saved data to the newer forms. Remember vinyl, reel to reel, 8track, cassette, compact discs, digital mp3's etc.....( I know, they were music related but....).

newbie147 Loc: Manchester UK

ecobin wrote:

I belong to a Mac users group which meets monthly.... (show quote)

Is it just me that thinks . How do they know they will last a 1,000 years

deej

newbie147 wrote:

Is it just me that thinks . How do they know they will last a 1,000 years

Cause no-one person presently will be around mush less the drives to test their theory. :shock:

newbie147 Loc: Manchester UK

deej wrote:

Cause no-one person presently will be around mush less the drives to test their theory. :shock:

That's what i mean. I think they just pick a number and treble it. They know it will never be disproved.

Jer Loc: Mesa, Arizona

I own the LG external M-disk drive. It's 99 dollars at Best Buy.
I know we won't be around in 1,000 years and the technology will be different in a few years. What I want is something that is more stable than what we currently have now. This appears to fit that bill.

ecobin wrote:

I belong to a Mac users group which meets monthly.... (show quote)

deej

Jer wrote:

I own the LG external M-disk drive. It's 99 dollars at Best Buy.
I know we won't be around in 1,000 years and the technology will be different in a few years. What I want is something that is more stable than what we currently have now. This appears to fit that bill.

Exactly, the same reason m-disks was added to part of my backup plan.

Merlin1300 Loc: New England, But Now & Forever SoTX

I currently have 2.15 TB of image files. At 4.7 GB per M-Disk, that would take 458 M-Disks to back up. At $2.70 each (in a 10-pack), that would cost $1,235 for the media - not to mention solid Days or Weeks of my time, flipping disks in and out of the drive, to do the back-up.
-
Like I said above:
I'm just waiting for the holographic, laser-based, crystalline cube storage media capable of holding 10TB in a 1cm^3 cube - - -

Jer Loc: Mesa, Arizona

I'm just putting my key photos on them. You are right everything would be to expensive.