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I came across M-disks boasting a lifespan of 1000 years and resistance to harsh environmental conditions. Is this based on some new technology or is it just the same as the other disks with approximately 5 year life span for data protection?
There is a 100 GB version of this on Amazon.
munish
Posted 2016-07-29T04:20:46.420
Reputation: 809
27
A theoretical lifespan of 1000 years is actually not that big. Factory-produced CD-ROMs which were replicated from a master-disk are expected to last for 100 years or more, but of course you cannot put your data on these. Next come gold-plated CD-R and DVD-R disks which are claimed to last for about 100-200 years by the manufacturer. Those claims are based on accelerated ageing tests, just like with M-Disks, so for me they sound just as valid. I still have my CD-Rs I have recorded 20 years ago, so the lifespan of regular CD-R disks is not 5 years like you said, unless perhaps you go for the cheapest ones. But if you really have found that disks which should last 100 years only last 5 in your environment, I would reasonably expect that a 1000-year lifespan disk should last about 50.
The real problem your descendants will likely to encounter in 100 years (let alone 1000 years) is to find the equipment to read the old disks you have left them. Typical CD and DVD drives are designed to last for 5 to 10 years of normal usage, and have perhaps 15 to 30 years of shelf life. It's hard to predict for how many more years CDs and DVDs will remain in use, but they will disappear eventually, and then your kinds will have a hard time reading those disks no matter how much you have paid for them.
Personally, I keep my data on a couple of hard drives, and copy it over to newer ones every 10 years or so. Sure, I'll need 200 HDDs over a thousand years, but I won't ever encounter troubles reading my backups on modern computers, and the capacity will keep growing over time, accommodating new data. If I decided to use M-disks instead, I'd have to buy new disks for new data ($30 for 50 GB on amazon) every year, so it would be more expensive, and my old M-disks would still age.
Dmitry Grigoryev
Posted 2016-07-29T04:20:46.420
Reputation: 7 505
3You don't need to worry about the equipment. By then, the aliens who decode the Voyager disk will come to visit and they'll have the technology. – fixer1234 – 2016-07-29T08:01:17.257
4@fixer1234 We don't need aliens, the technology to read old disks is already here. Now try to find a commercially available device to read an 8" floppy. – Dmitry Grigoryev – 2016-07-29T08:06:13.450
26That's what makes the US nuclear arsenal so secure; nobody else still has working 8" floppy drives. – fixer1234 – 2016-07-29T08:13:01.163
Yeah, normal CDs can last quite a while, provided you keep them dry and dark. If you keep an unprotected home-burnt CD data-side up on your desk in direct sunlight, it can be unreadable in a few months (tested for you). Factory-made CDs last longer even under those conditions, and the data layer itself might survive long after the CD is no longer readable (the plastic deteriorates under UV light), and they still last longer than most other forms of storage (floppies, hard drives, flash drives, paper, ...). The M-drive probably tries to allude to clay/stone tablets that are still readable now. – Luaan – 2016-07-29T08:50:16.453
6"I'll need 200 HDDs over a thousand years" -- this is what they call a good problem to have. – Steve Jessop – 2016-07-29T10:58:21.297
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Something to keep in mind: Another problem that will arise, is a way to read the data format in the future. With HDD you can convert the data, if necessary, with M-Disk (or something similar), this will be hard. Archives have to deal with the problem regularly, e.g. https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/selecting-file-formats.pdf
– Residuum – 2016-07-29T15:20:33.8637Fun story: I had saved some (rather) old Zip Disks (remember those) and made sure I saved the external drive as well (and copied its driver from a 3.5" floppy to CD-R). Recently I wanted to check if I had a certain data set on those disks, and when I went to get the data, I discovered that, while I had the disks and drive, the drive needed to be connected to a parallel port, and none of my computers had one! – TMN – 2016-07-29T15:55:53.487
1@TMN that's what you get for buying the cheaper parallel port version of the Zip drive instead of the IDE version. Oh, wait, good luck finding a working IDE interface in a computer built in the last 10 years, too. ;-) – Craig – 2016-07-29T23:53:32.817
1@TMN Pretty sure I saw some code floating around to use GPIO pins on Arduino or Pi to make a working parallel port. – Zan Lynx – 2016-07-30T03:58:42.293
@Craig: Yeah, I should have gone with the SCSI version like my business partner did. Except he's the one who called me about the data set in the first place, because the SCSI card he had for his ZIP drive would only fit in an ISA slot... – TMN – 2016-08-01T11:11:39.613
@TMN Somebody somewhere probably sells a little box with ISA slots that plugs into a USB port. :-) – Craig – 2016-08-01T22:24:05.667
@DmitryGrigoryev I disagree - DVD/CD equipment will not be hard to find hundreds of years away. That's like saying that desktops and landlines will go (and they won't, no matter what any of you think). Even today, floppy disks, VHS tapes, cassettes, records, typewriters, and grandfather clocks are all readily available and are used and preferred by many. CDs and DVDs are digital but who knows - maybe we'll shift back to analog? – InterLinked – 2016-08-03T00:47:20.913
@InterLinked Those technologies you mentioned are either 50 years old at most, or essentially phased out. Typewriters and grandfather clocks are not readily available: try to buy spare parts for those online for example, and you'll discover you either have to buy a new device or have the part custom-made at 100x the price. And BTW, my parents don't have landline since 5 years or so, and I only have one because I got it for free from my internet provider. – Dmitry Grigoryev – 2016-08-03T09:28:22.507
1CD / DVD is already outdated.Many new laptops do not have a DVD player and everyone is switching to USB – Suici Doga – 2016-08-05T13:08:36.727
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Yes, as they are advertising it, the M-Disc contains a data layer which is made out of stone-like metals and metalloids. As you know that the home-made optical discs have a soft data layer and the layer is not resistant to heat, humidity, light, etc. but the M-Disc is very much different than the home-made discs.
You also know the US DoD test and how the M-Discs survives the extreme humidity and light for 24 hours.
M-Discs also use the coating of polycarbonate. If that's true then you can be sure of one thing that it can hold up to extreme temperature and light. Experts are saying that the polycarbonate coating in M-Discs is good for 1000 years.
So the bottom line is the facts are the facts, but sometimes you have got to believe in the statistics. So for me, it couldn't be very bad.
Animesh Patra
Posted 2016-07-29T04:20:46.420
Reputation: 2 188
What do you mean by "home-made discs"? – edc65 – 2016-07-29T06:25:10.310
Like normal discs that are not made of the technology that used to make the M-Discs. – Animesh Patra – 2016-07-29T06:27:29.120
13@edc65 You mean you don't have a home CD factory? – SGR – 2016-07-29T07:23:57.670
1"stone like metals and metalloids" don't actually sound that durable to me. Old things I see in museums are usually made of gold, so I'd be more inclined to trust gold-plated disks when it comes to durability. – Dmitry Grigoryev – 2016-07-29T08:03:19.107
3Polycarbonate doesn't like UV light (including sunlight), so that's not promising. – Chris H – 2016-07-29T09:09:49.090
@DmitryGrigoryev gold plating can be undermined by corrosion on some surfaces. – Chris H – 2016-07-29T09:10:25.153
@ChrisH everything can be undermined by corrosion, but gold tends to last longer. Gold-plated disks should be much more resistant to bronzing than their aluminium or silver based counterparts.
– Dmitry Grigoryev – 2016-07-29T09:22:48.520@DmitryGrigoryev they should, yes. But solid gold (for example) couldn't be undermined as there's no "under". – Chris H – 2016-07-29T09:25:48.887
It should be noted that pure gold is very very soft and can be manipulated by hand in a warm room. – Burgi – 2016-07-29T10:32:44.233
1If the reflective coating is the only thing that degrades, the data could be recovered with specialist equipment by removing and replacing it, or ignoring it by examining the disc surface with an electron microscope (if anyone cares about your data in 1000 years, they're as likely to have access to one as to a consumer optical drive). The plastic is what you've got to really worry about. – Random832 – 2016-07-29T20:45:00.357
14you will only really know in 1000 years. – Musselman – 2016-07-29T06:21:33.827
1something about using just one disk being less sensible than re-recording on multiple disks with backup copies, etc and so forth – user1306322 – 2016-07-29T09:14:05.500
Seems dodgy, as they're sending something back that is supposedly readable by home cd/dvd drives, so there will be fairly strict tolerances on to how much they can change the disk. Plus who cares if my CD has stone in the middle of it, as the data is on the surface layers! So all this seems to be doing is maybe preventing snapped discs. – cjb110 – 2016-07-29T09:55:12.690
1@Xavierjazz This isn't necessarily spam. M-disk compatibility is already being advertised in otherwise normal CD drives that make it to OEMs (and probably individual buyers). Hence, for those that do already have this drive (I wasn't even aware of this until I began looking for low-level details on my OEM's drive) this is a question of selecting a recording medium based on technical merits and drawbacks. – Reinstate Monica - ζ-- – 2016-07-29T11:36:54.983
If you put the amazon link in, Stack Exchange will get the referral bonus if anyone buys it. (Just a thought.) – wizzwizz4 – 2016-07-29T14:33:35.547
I wouldn't bother with M-DISC. Gold-based archival discs aren't hard to find; I'd probably use Verbatim UltraLife Gold. – bwDraco – 2016-07-29T17:20:35.847
Paper, when stored under the right conditions, can last many thousands of years. (You can even make back-ups on it!)
– Ben N – 2016-07-29T23:24:07.917