[GUB]

M-Disks have been around a while now, and pretty much any new CD/DVD/Blu-Ray burner should be able to handle them if it's any good.

So they are as they seem - good for archiving.?

[Kiwizinho]

So they are as they seem - good for archiving.?

I haven't tried them myself, but this pretty insane review suggests they might actually live up to some of the claims about them.

I suspect most people wouldn't subject their data media to such harsh treatment.

http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/artsep16/mol-mdisc-review.html]Micscape Microscopy and Microscope Magazine[/url]

[bobD]

So they are as they seem - good for archiving.?

As most of the M-Disk links resolve to the 'Internet Archive' or the Way-back Machine I very much doubt that anything is current....

So , 'good for archiving' only if...

a)You can find any disks...
b)You can find any of the burners...

[GUB]

As most of the M-Disk links resolve to the 'Internet Archive' or the Way-back Machine I very much doubt that anything is current....

So , 'good for archiving' only if...

a)You can find any disks...
b)You can find any of the burners...

I was noticing that too Bob but --

Attached Images

 

[GUB]

I haven't tried them myself, but this pretty insane review suggests they might actually live up to some of the claims about them.

I suspect most people wouldn't subject their data media to such harsh treatment.

http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/artsep16/mol-mdisc-review.html]Micscape Microscopy and Microscope Magazine[/url]

That seemed to be the same link as I posted last page. But your one is not working for me. Try this one Micscape Microscopy and Microscope Magazine

[zkarj]

I have my “real” photos on a fast, ultra-portable SSD. This gets regularly (like, hourly) backed up to Backblaze, who’s entire business is secure storage. There’s no such thing as media failure there as it’s designed out with redundancy and constant refresh. Then I also make an archive of the same photos to Backblaze’s B2 storage (much like Amazon S3). The latter serves as protection from accidental deletion as I never delete anything from it, whereas the regular backup will faithfully ape any local deletions and after a year they completely disappear from the backup. And I’ve been burned by that last fact. During a move from Apple Aperture to Lightroom many years ago I somehow lost 3 months worth of photos and didn’t realise until years later. I was very lucky to find a very old backup on a bare drive that I had forgotten existed. Just as well they were older photos I’d screwed up with.

[Kiwizinho]

As most of the M-Disk links resolve to the 'Internet Archive' or the Way-back Machine I very much doubt that anything is current....

So , 'good for archiving' only if...

a)You can find any disks...
b)You can find any of the burners...

DVD Burners capable of burning M-Disks are easy to find. Blu-Ray burners, not so much.

DVD M-Disks are not all that easy to find, but Blu-Ray M-Disks are.

Go figure.

At least once they're burnt, they're supposed to be readable in most DVD/Blu-Ray drives.

[GUB]

DVD Burners capable of burning M-Disks are easy to find. Blu-Ray burners, not so much.

DVD M-Disks are not all that easy to find, but Blu-Ray M-Disks are.

Go figure.

At least once they're burnt, they're supposed to be readable in most DVD/Blu-Ray drives.

Without going back and checking I think the 4.7gb DVD ones are discontinued.
It is quite strange - there doesn't seem to be any negative views on the M Discs but they are reasonably unknown.
I guess everyone has mentally moved on from optical systems. I kind of trust a disc more than a hdd (moving parts) and it is pretty clear that flash techno is not an option if it is a backup drive that is going to be left undisturbed.

[richandfleur]

For unplanned candid photos of moment at birtday and the like, I much prefer a modern mirrorless camera with the smarts to nail the focus with confidence quickly.
Be that a cellphone or a mirrorless ILC, they would easily be my goto for that sort of content.
I can't see a DSLR being as repsonsive or accurate in that sitaution, and depending on the subject matter the cellphone photo may genuinely be good enough.

I pull out the pentax for the likes of a bird in the tree outside etc, where I can't get close, or a long exposure shot where having control over the exposure is required.
And possibly for a formal portrait, where I have the time to setup the camera in advance and manually set the focus etc.

[NZ_Ross]

For unplanned candid photos of moment at birtday and the like, I much prefer a modern mirrorless camera with the smarts to nail the focus with confidence quickly.
Be that a cellphone or a mirrorless ILC, they would easily be my goto for that sort of content.

Working on the theory that you should always carry a camera, in my case that will always be a phone camera. As GUB pointed out - in a family snapshot situation it is still better to have a photo rather than no photo at all.

[Kiwi645hauler]

For unplanned candid photos of moment at birtday and the like, I much prefer a modern mirrorless camera with the smarts to nail the focus with confidence quickly.
Be that a cellphone or a mirrorless ILC, they would easily be my goto for that sort of content.
I can't see a DSLR being as repsonsive or accurate in that sitaution, and depending on the subject matter the cellphone photo may genuinely be good enough.

I pull out the pentax for the likes of a bird in the tree outside etc, where I can't get close, or a long exposure shot where having control over the exposure is required.
And possibly for a formal portrait, where I have the time to setup the camera in advance and manually set the focus etc.

My if i must but dont have a camera on me imaging device is always in my pocket, otherwise i generally carry a camera with me, most days it is my O brand Mirrorless, but other times it is my Tiny Pentax.. aka the Auto 110 simply because its small, my M brand 35mm SLR would be second choice of film camera as my current Pentax 35mm is not exactly operationally sound due to a couple of issues that are not worth the $$ that would need to be expending in fixing them

[richandfleur]

my O brand Mirrorless

Ha I too have a C brand Mirrorless, it's cheap and small but has an APS-C sized sensor and it focusses insanely well compared to everything I've ever had in Pentax land. Likes of real tracking AF and exceptional face identification etc. Has a rear flippy touchscreen also, with likes of pinch to zoom and swipe to move between photos and navigate menus etc.

Image quality isn't comparable to Pentax at all (think lower Dynamic Range/blown highlights, less recoverable detail in the shadows etc) but that's not why I got it and isn't important in most of the situations that little thing comes out in.

[Kiwi645hauler]

DVD Burners capable of burning M-Disks are easy to find. Blu-Ray burners, not so much.

DVD M-Disks are not all that easy to find, but Blu-Ray M-Disks are.

Go figure.

I would agree with you on that.. Looking into my suppliers for work, 3x BluRay burners, 4x DVD/CD Burners available, all MDisc friendly, yet MDiscs non-existent from any of my suppliers.
As always, my big question with any claims of longevity with new tech, is always how accurate is the accelerated testing processes used to make these claims, i have conducted some pretty unscientific tests when the original Dye-Sub Canon printers arrived on the scene, and their 20+ year claims for colour longevity, did not pan out, i placed a print off a dye sub printer, and the same image printed the same day on a silver halide lab printer in the same frame and hung it on a wall that didnt have direct sunlight on it and the Dye Sub print had faded by about 50% in 2 years, so the colour longevity was thrown out the window, i showed it to my then canon rep and he didnt say much except my test was flawed..

[GUB]

I would agree with you on that.. Looking into my suppliers for work, 3x BluRay burners, 4x DVD/CD Burners available, all MDisc friendly, yet MDiscs non-existent from any of my suppliers.
As always, my big question with any claims of longevity with new tech, is always how accurate is the accelerated testing processes used to make these claims, i have conducted some pretty unscientific tests when the original Dye-Sub Canon printers arrived on the scene, and their 20+ year claims for colour longevity, did not pan out, i placed a print off a dye sub printer, and the same image printed the same day on a silver halide lab printer in the same frame and hung it on a wall that didnt have direct sunlight on it and the Dye Sub print had faded by about 50% in 2 years, so the colour longevity was thrown out the window, i showed it to my then canon rep and he didnt say much except my test was flawed..

The thing is with archiving the alternatives ain't that hot either. I have 3 generations of family images to hand down to the 4th generation. 4 or 5 discs burn't at a cost of something like $20 each spread around is probably head and shoulders ahead of any alternatives. I have had things sitting on thumbdrives thinking I was onto it but as you can see the drives are probably less stable than elcheapo burning cds.
And we can be sceptical of ageing claims but I have been searching for negative feedback and haven't really found any. Wiki has a sceptical "durability claims" whose wording seems garbled.

[Kiwizinho]

As always, my big question with any claims of longevity with new tech, is always how accurate is the accelerated testing processes used to make these claims,.

Even if M-Disk doesn't live up to its claimed 1000 year life, (unlikely), if the disks are still readable after even 50 years that would still be impressive, and probably good enough as long as drives are available to read them.

Optical media does seem like it should be the most durable if it is made of the right materials, as there is no electrical charge or magnetism to be disrupted.

The down side is durable materials tend to be more expensive, and M-Disks do seem to be expensive for a given storage capacity compared to flash memory or hard drives.

While the actual data layer seems like it's pretty durable, I'm not sure about the material the rest of the disk is made of. Plastics can lose plasticiser and become brittle over time, so it depends what the disks are made of, although I've got commercial CDs going back over 20 years that still play music fine, so even with conventional CDs/DVDs it seems like the dye layer is potentially more of a problem than the rest of the disk material.

I did see that Microsoft has experimented successfully with encoding data in DNA, although apparently data retrieval is tediously slow. (That makes me laugh when I think about anti-vaxers thinking Bill Gates wants to inject us with microchips, when Microsoft already knows how to store data in genetic material Microchips? So last century. So far there have been no reports of anyone suffering blue screens of death, even by the conspiracy crowd, and given the tendency of code bloat in Windows, it would probably be bigger than the human genome to encode. In the best traditions of Hitchhikers' guide to the Galaxy, I propose that the first injectable version of Windows will be known as Windows 42 and will provide the answer to the question of life, the universe and everything )