M-DISC 100GBs for backup

Hey Lain, Was considering a proper backup strategy for the long term for both media soykaf and actual important data such as photographs and documents. I was considering them due to A: Price: I can get a 5 pack with jewel cases for 50 euros. B: Reliability: it seems as long as I keep these little guys in their cases I won't have any problems. C: Destruction: If I need to decommission data it's a matter of shredding the disk. D: Storage: Easy, secure storage already exists for CD Jewel cases, so I can get a lockable box to keep them safe. The downsides I can think of is that the drives or disks may become hard to find over the years, but I'm not sure to what extent. Is this a good idea for a backup medium, or am I missing something?

>>55244 Yes, i guess M-disc is one of the only decent archival solution available for us normal people Be sure to buy a couple compatible drives and store them safely, SATA is already on the way out for commercial uses but it'll be in use for at least a decade more I believe even normal HDDs will last long enough, not sure

How much would it cost to burn optical discs on factory equipment? These are more reliable.

>>55244 I've been looking at tape recently, of course it's all but cheap considering the price of newer drives but with the shear amount of storage per tape it will probably end up being cheaper in the long run with how much I plan on storing. And even then, I could always settle for a LTO-1 drive with how cheap they've become and save up for a few decades. With how little space M-Discs provide and how cheap hard drives have become, I don't see much of a future for optical media, atleast for now.

>>55244 I also think the "m-discs" seem like a reasonably good idea. but, frankly, I would keep anything I intend for 20yrs+ on flash media as well as m-disc. SATA and/or USB Mass Storage should always be supported. that said, given that m-discs are backwards compatbile with normal optical readers, you should always be able to access them.

>>55267 I believe factories don't "burn" optical discs; they rather "mould" them. This isn't really viable unless you're making many copies off a master. Home-burnable discs have an organic dye layer (according to my burner's output logs, generally either phthalocyanine or something similar) that a laser punches holes in for later readout; factory-made discs are (according to Wikipedia) generally moulded directly with the data on them. What makes the m-discs special is that they have a material that is allegedly longer-lasting than either an organic dye or a moulded polycarbonate, yet can have data ablated into it with non-industrial equipment

>>55536 It's a black box feature claimed by single manufacturer and proprietor of patented technology undisputed by independent auditing body, right?

>>55270 Tape drives definitely are a massive investment if you're storing personal data. I personally can't think of any non-enterprise use case, might I ask what sort of data you'd be planning on storing?

>>55592 >It's a black box feature I don't think "black box feature" is the right term. They are, once burned, "just normal optical discs" readable in any commodity reader by any manufacturer. >and proprietor of patented technology given that the drives for burning them use an identical hardware and software interface to commodity consumer optical burners (which I doubt can be said of industrial mastering equipment), I'm not very concerned about such "patents" causing problems any more than Sharpie or BIC's patented ink blend I label the discs with. >undisputed by independent auditing body Indeed, it's entirely possible that the m-disc data substrate is soykaf and lasts an order of magnitude less than advertised. But I doubt that ablated patterns in a glass-like medium are more fragile against the ravages of extended storage than the same as scorch marks an organic dye layer. But I wouldn't trust a single substrate of any kind at the 20-year timescale, anyway.

>>55621 As I said, older LTO revisions are very cheap at the moment with how many companies are throwing out their old storage vaults. So as long as you're ready to deal with the flaksy-ness of decade old electronics they should be a reasonable option for most personal uses, that is if you're storing a lot of data. As for what I'm planning on storing? A LOT OF DATA, I've been trying to store more and more of the media I consume and the games I play locally for some time now (mostly for convenience rather than archival purposes) and that has caused my storage needs to rapidly balloon in size. Combine that with the fact most of the data I'm storing doesn't need to be accessed very often and LTO became a much more favourable option. That being said, I haven't yet bought any older LTO drives so don't take anything I'm saying as a recommendation, it's just something I'm personally intrested in trying out.

if you put CP on your storage devices the CSAM detection module will override the planned obsolescence module i haven't had a singal failure in 15 years

>>55757 Ah; you're planning on nabbing old business gear. That's a different ball-game entirely. I might keep an eye out and if one crosses my path I'll see if I can pick it up. Tape seems reasonable for media archival, provided it is archival and not just a collection. Might I suggest also hoarding books/repos of software that you may use? It may prove useful should *something* happen.

>>55244 Could it be cheaper to buy standard drives and media and just keep cloning them at every certain amount of time? It is certainly not convenient, but imagine if you get a bad batch of M-discs?

>>55809 Heh, maybe... Tape doesn't lend itself very well to *something happening scenarios* , it's designed to be written and forgotten about in a climate controlled storage closet until the one who wrote it specifically needs it again. If my intentions were less selfserving than I'd instead go for the good ol' redundant array of disks in order to allow people other than me access to it. However My intentions are purely selfserving so I like the idea of rolling up every game, movie, show, and book I've ever played, watched or read on encrypted tape so I can access it whenever and 90-something-old me can play one last game of Wii sports without faffing around on the internet looking for a copy.

>>55871 "To you, my son, I leave this encrypted tape." "Does it contain your account information? A collection of your writings?" "It's my porn and a copy of Wii Sports. "Bitchin'"