jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

M-Discs might not be worth the investment, considering other storage options that are available.

http://www.howtogeek.com/265516/are-m-discs-more-reliable-than-other-forms-of-storage/

Carl D Loc: Albemarle, NC.

That's all I use now. The verbatim 50 bd-r dl are the best value. To many people are complaining about the 100gb not being reliable to record to yet. The price is also high. Optical storage is superior to any magnetic media. Any form of hard drive is only good for 4-7 years. Think of all the HD's you have to have and rerecord to equal a 100+ year permanent recording on one disc that heat, cold, dampness, light, electrical interference, ect. The media on an M-disc is an inorganic carbon that is burned with the data. That's why you can't record over them, it's a one time permanent thing. All I know is that I do a desktop backup on my ultra book, then when I'm not going to immediately need the photos anymore, off to M-disc they go and erased from my ultra book and my computer HD.

Merlin1300 Loc: New England, But Now & Forever SoTX

Problem is - - when you have TERRABYTES of data, storing it to CD-Anything is an exercise in futility.
At 700MB per disk, you'd need 1430 of them to store just ONE Terrabyte.
Using the M-Disk BD-R 25GB at $75 for a 25-pack, you'd need 40 of them to store one TB ($150 worth)
Not to mention the time it would take to burn all those things.
-
I think I'll just wait for development of Holographic storage - - 100 TB in a 1cm cube.
Of course it may be StarDate 2059.07.003 before that happens

Quantus5

Where M Discs shine is as another alternative backup method to supplement hard drive backups. I use M Discs to do an extra backup of my "critical" data, i.e. I have the data backed up on at least two hard drives, and then another copy on an M Disc (so at least 3 copies)!!

So the big con is not about finding optical drives (in the future). No one knows exactly how long they'll be available but they'll still very likely be available for purchase at least 30 years from now (much longer than the shelf life of a hard drive), and I would actually guess 50+ years since the higher capacity optical drives can read the less dense formats. And when you start to get worried -- maybe in 30 years -- you just transfer them to whatever is being used in 30 years. Cost is roughly about even, the big con is just "ease of use". Hard drive backups are just so much easier to do. The big pro of using M Discs is the longevity of the data itself.

M Discs have their place -- you just have to know how to use them. As a secondary backup method (in addition) to hard drives they shine!

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I think one important point is that if you're doing backup (or archive, there is a difference) you should duplicate your efforts and store them in different places. Using different media would also be a good strategy to resist obsolescence. So don't rely on hard drives alone or M-disks alone or the cloud alone. Go for a combination.

Quantus5

Great points! 100% agree.

Merlin1300 Loc: New England, But Now & Forever SoTX

See my 8/7/16 note above:
With 3 TB on my 9TB data drive, M-Disks are simply NOT an option. FAR to Expen$ive, and WAY to slow.
I currently use an external 4TB HDD in a Sabrent USB3 docking station. I CLONE my data drive with Macrium Reflect (Free - HIGHLY Recommended)
The Clone process runs for about 48 hours. Then I remove the Back-up drive (NOT susceptible to ransom-ware viruses) until the next Clone 2 weeks later.
M-Disks have gone the way of the Dodo - as have Zip Disks and Tape Drive back-ups (ALL of which I have owned)

Quantus5

I use hard drives in much the same way as you do. Ease of use is the big advantage of hard drives, and hard drive storage is very inexpensive these days. I like using "synchronization" software, and like you I highly prefer using hard drives as my primary backup method.

Still M-Disks have their uses. Like I said, they are great for backing up critical data that you can then store somewhere else (and where you do not want to have your data in the cloud). They are also still great for giving or transferring a large amount of data to someone, especially if that person has a slow internet connection (transferring data in the GB sizes over the Internet is extremely painful for someone with a slow Internet connection). So there are still uses for M-Disks. For me it's my "tertiary" backup method -- and I don't backup all my data with M-Disks, just what I consider my critical data -- which easily fits on one 25GB M Disk, and the cost of one 25GB M-Disk (about $2) is cheaper than a 32GB USB stick ($8), although in some cases the price differential is getting low enough, and the convenience is high, that I am starting to use USB sticks and just give them to people when transferring data. So this reason is starting to go away.

Merlin1300 Loc: New England, But Now & Forever SoTX

Can't argue - - M-Disks may still have niche value, particularly as you mention - -
BUT, as one disk would not even back up my system drive (512GB pair of SSD in RAID-1), I'd not go there.
Giving info to others - - as I've not investigated M-Disks - I assume no unique driver software is required ? in which case OK
However if longevity is not a factor in the transfer - why not use a Blu-Ray disk ?
For small transfers, a 32GB Thumb-Drive / USB Stick would be universally transferable.
http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-496767-1.html

Quantus5

Yes -- if you have large backup requirements M-disc is not the best solution for you. It's mainly a usability issue, as per your example, you would need to use 5ea. M Discs. to backup a 512 GB hard drive, which is just a pain.

Note: no special software drivers required for M Discs. It just the composition of the layers that is superior, for example the substance used is extremely resistant to oxidation.

On the issue of just using regular BlueRay disks to transfer/give data to someone else. Yes -- very feasible -- the only advantage of M Discs is they last almost forever, if that extreme longevity is not needed then regular optical discs are fine for this niche use.

The pro and cons of using a USB stick versus optical discs is purely around cost. In today's prices: A 25GB M-Disc is around $1.50, a 25GB BlueRay disc is less than $1, and a 32GB USB stick is around $8. The pro of the USB stick is speed. So it's just a cost versus speed decision. In many cases the speed doesn't matter -- so burning to an optical disc is a great use for them. The person on the other end has to have an optical reader, which works in most of my cases because in my case the they have one, but if they don't you have to use the more expensive USB stick solution to transfer data. Also if people have a high-speed Internet connection to transfer data you can go that route, but I don't, so this method is extremely painful for me -- once you get into GBs of data.