The M-Disc, as seen in the video (below)
Backing up has always been a great headache for most people – DVDs last from 50 to 100 years in the best of conditions – which means no bending, scratching or twisting and perfect climate. Hard drives are prone to failure because of the number of moving parts that they have, and cloud storage comes with a very high recurrent fee, although it seems to be the safest.
An The M-Disc, on the other hand, is a new optical disc that is great for storing your important data for a very, very long time. Coming in at a price of $3 per piece and having the storage capacity of a 4.7GB DVD, it might be the next best thing for backing up important data.
The M-Disc has a proprietary material that is quoted to be ‘stone-like’, and has been tested to withstand the stresses of being dipped into liquid nitrogen, and then into 80°C hot water without suffering any ill effects. According to Computerworld, it also has a US Department of Defense study that backs up its resiliency.
The M-Disc can be read by any DVD or Blu-Ray player today, although you might need to update its firmware. On the other hand, writing on it requires a totally new drive. To this end, Millenniata will partner with LG to create optical disc drives that are M-Disc write-ready.
The way the M-Disc works is by eliminating the weakest link in DVDs – the reflective layer made out of organic dyes that can degrade over time. In an ordinary DVD, the DVD-writer would use a low-powered laser to change the reflectiveness of the DVD, and thus creating what the DVD drive would interpret as data. However, the M-Disc takes away this weak link, and uses an even more powerful laser to directly etch data onto its proprietary layer.
Millenniata states that the patented technology can be transferred over to Blu-Ray, allowing greater capacity on a similar sized disc without compromising on permanency of data. However, this is a plan for the future.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
