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General discussionLet the Personal Preservation Programs Commence (M-Disc)(20 posts)(20 posts)
(20 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted April 01, 2025
Well, the times and circumstances seem to have necessitated the urge to make an archive of games as cheaply as possible. LTO cartridges are inexpensive, but the drives are far too costly for home use and folks without disposable income (most people on Earth) So, here we are at the cheapest possible solution for consumers....the M-disc.

Most external writers are slimline and rather delicate. Instead, we chose to go with the Asus external Xbox- like BDXL drive. There are three different manufacturers of the actual current M-Disc:Verbatim, Ritek, and the now defunct developer Millenniata. Millenniata discs are still available on Amazon in the 25GB DVD variety. Ritek and Verbatim are readily available in the BDXL format (100GB) with them both also having the DVD M-Disc as well. We prefer Verbatim.

All in all, the drive, the cases, the Sharpies, and the 30 M-Discs cost about $450 U.S. I'll need about 30 more. So...all in all.... around $700 to back up about 1,000 GOG titles. It's not cheap by any means....but will be well worth the effort if the actual discs can last half as long as claimed.

I encourage others to start their own archives as well. GOG should offer the option to do it for you IMHO for a fee.
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Post edited April 01, 2025 by RizzoCuoco
Posted April 02, 2025
It seems rather like something for a collector to do in the present day, to have physical copies to display, because otherwise a couple of HDDs would be a much better option, even having two or three copies of everything, to be really sure. And aren't M-Discs non-rewritable, meaning that any update would mean discarding and making a new one, which the HDDs would solve?
Posted April 02, 2025
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Cavalary: It seems rather like something for a collector to do in the present day, to have physical copies to display, because otherwise a couple of HDDs would be a much better option, even having two or three copies of everything, to be really sure. And aren't M-Discs non-rewritable, meaning that any update would mean discarding and making a new one, which the HDDs would solve?
Well...to answer your question.....I can make addenda discs for updated installers. Not an issue. A 100GB disc is only $10.
No, I don't find HDDs practical for archival purposes at all. I'm literally copying all my external HDDs to disk.....some 16TB. i'll keep both for sure...the Hdds for installation purposes...but the discs are going in a safe. Why would I want to rely on HDDs when they need to be replaced after a few years? That's waaaay more expensive.
Post edited April 02, 2025 by RizzoCuoco
Posted April 02, 2025
Ah, that'll go great with my not Optical Media drive. I think I'd prefer to stick with tapes.
Posted April 02, 2025
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dnovraD: Ah, that'll go great with my not Optical Media drive. I think I'd prefer to stick with tapes.
Believe me...if I could afford it....I would use tape. Although tape is susceptible to electromagnetic degradation I hear.
Post edited April 02, 2025 by RizzoCuoco
Posted April 02, 2025
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RizzoCuoco: Why would I want to rely on HDDs when they need to be replaced after a few years? That's waaaay more expensive.
Depends on the quality of those HDDs. Mine from the old computer were 12.5 years old, and in constant use, in the computer, all that time, by the time I got this computer and set them aside (still fully functional). And the oldest external one is 7.5 years old.
Posted April 02, 2025
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RizzoCuoco: Why would I want to rely on HDDs when they need to be replaced after a few years? That's waaaay more expensive.
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Cavalary: Depends on the quality of those HDDs. Mine from the old computer were 12.5 years old, and in constant use, in the computer, all that time, by the time I got this computer and set them aside (still fully functional). And the oldest external one is 7.5 years old.
I'll take these M-discs with a lifespan of several hundred years for archival purposes and one secondary large external back-up HDD for installation all day every day. Thank you for enforcing my point. I'm archiving here remember? I don't wanna do this even every 7 years or 12 en mass.
Post edited April 02, 2025 by RizzoCuoco
Posted April 02, 2025
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RizzoCuoco: I'll take these M-discs with a lifespan of several hundred years and one secondary large external back-up HDD all day every day. Thank you for enforcing my point. I'm archiving here remember? I don't wanna do this even every 7 years.
Oh, if you're going for THAT long a target lifespan, fair enough. I for one doubt human civilization would last that long, not to mention any conditions that'd still allow people to think much about PC gaming... And the ways to read those disks and play those games are likely to last way, way less.
Posted April 02, 2025
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RizzoCuoco: I'll take these M-discs with a lifespan of several hundred years and one secondary large external back-up HDD all day every day. Thank you for enforcing my point. I'm archiving here remember? I don't wanna do this even every 7 years.
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Cavalary: Oh, if you're going for THAT long a target lifespan, fair enough. I for one doubt human civilization would last that long, not to mention any conditions that'd still allow people to think much about PC gaming... And the ways to read those disks and play those games are likely to last way, way less.
Well...I'm probably not even gonna live 50 years longer. So...it's all actually irrelevant. lol In kinder words.....I just want to do this process once. ROTFLMAO.
Touché
Post edited April 02, 2025 by RizzoCuoco
Posted April 02, 2025
Optical media also wins the battle against other media when it comes to preventing data contamination by computer malware. I wouldn't be surprised if most online computers are already infected by low level malware that is simply lying dormant for now...
Posted April 02, 2025
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Cavalary: Oh, if you're going for THAT long a target lifespan, fair enough. I for one doubt human civilization would last that long, not to mention any conditions that'd still allow people to think much about PC gaming...
This.
I'm not convinced we'll survive this century. As a species, we seem more and more hell-bent on wiping ourselves out, one way or another.

I do like the idea of having such an archive though, to at least last my own lifetime. At the moment my archive exists on a nice external SSD I got for cheap, but I know that's not real wonderful for long term storage. Going for longer-term, though, will probably have to wait until I can manage to acquire a better computer. Raising my system requirement limits to allow most games from within the last decade would be nice and is a higher priority for me. XD
Posted April 02, 2025
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RizzoCuoco: but the discs are going in a safe..
Just a shout-out on that: you might find a sealed wooden cabinet better than a steel safe due to moisture levels which can be a problem for the health of physical media.
Posted April 08, 2025
So, just an update for anyone who might be interested. I began the process of moving all the GOG installers to disc yesterday.

There are some caveats to the process and a whole lot of misinfo on the net. First, burning a 100Gb M-disc takes approximately 3.5 hours as it can only be done at 2 or 4x. In addition, and for peace of mind, a disc health check should also be performed which takes about 1.5 hours. All in all, making a successful burn takes 5 hours of waiting.

Another interesting fact that I have overlooked is access time/read speed. The Bluray drive will always always be the bottleneck in any system. In real world terms, these discs are only good for archival cold storage. It takes exctly 3.5 hours to copy the contents of 1 disc to a HDD or SSD because we are stuck at 6x read speed or 27MBs. Because of this, Installing from the disc is possible.....but not practical.

Now regarding the misinfo on the net. Just because a drive has M-disc support, does not mean that it supports all capacities. There are numerous claims on the net that M-disc DVD needed a special burner to engrave the discs, but that was only for DVD. Also that the M-disc blu-rays follow standard protocol, and as long as a drive supports either BD-R or BDXL, it would support all M-discs. I'm here to tell you that the internet is full of shit as usual. You do, in fact, need a drive that explicitly states that it supports the exact type of disc you have. I bought an Asus burner that claimed on the site (Amazon) that it was a BDXL drive and had M-disc support. Long story short...its M-disc support was limited to DVD+R(SL, M-DISC) : 4X and BD-R(SL, M-DISC) : 4X.........in other words....only single layer DVD and single layer Bluray. I had to buy the 4k fully M-disc compliant Verbatim drive the following day.

Also, as for the wooden chest/cabinet idea......I like it!

EDIT: If you decide to take the M-disc journey, just be aware of what devices are on the market. Most of the drives are internal drives for professional film reproduction and archival purposes, but they can be easily converted to external with an enclosure.

The rest are, of course, external, and rather delicate. The issue with these drives is power. The writing of M-discs takes a very powerful laser and some manufacturers bundle their drives with a USB C (device end) to USB A for connection. This is fine if you are burning only DVD. It's not powerful enough for anything else and needs a USB A female to USB C male converter on the end....or an external power supply. USB A only gives 4.5 watts without BC1.2 support whereas USB C 3.1 gen 2 without PD (what's on my pc) supplies 15 watts.
Post edited April 09, 2025 by RizzoCuoco
Posted April 08, 2025
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RizzoCuoco: So, just an update for anyone who might be interested. I began the process of moving all the GOG installers to disc yesterday. (...)

Another interesting fact that I have overlooked is access time/read speed. The Bluray drive will always always be the bottleneck in any system. In real world terms, these discs are only good for archival cold storage. It takes exctly 3.5 hours to copy the contents of 1 disc to a HDD or SSD because we are stuck at 6x read speed or 27MBs. Because of this, Installing from the disc is possible.....but not practical.
Thank you for the update. Good to know that the Asus Writer isn't qualified for this task.

Is the 3.5 hours read time above a typo? It can't be 6x read speed if takes the same time as writing at 2x or 4x...

In any case, a read speed of 27 MB/s is still disappointing because that's about USB 2.0 level. Personally, I think I'd use such a system only for my most valued personal files (documents, family photos etc). In a situation where I'd actually need to access this backup, I wouldn't mind waiting for sure.
Post edited April 08, 2025 by g2222
Posted April 09, 2025
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RizzoCuoco: So, just an update for anyone who might be interested. I began the process of moving all the GOG installers to disc yesterday. (...)

Another interesting fact that I have overlooked is access time/read speed. The Bluray drive will always always be the bottleneck in any system. In real world terms, these discs are only good for archival cold storage. It takes exctly 3.5 hours to copy the contents of 1 disc to a HDD or SSD because we are stuck at 6x read speed or 27MBs. Because of this, Installing from the disc is possible.....but not practical.
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g2222: Thank you for the update. Good to know that the Asus Writer isn't qualified for this task.

Is the 3.5 hours read time above a typo? It can't be 6x read speed if takes the same time as writing at 2x or 4x...

In any case, a read speed of 27 MB/s is still disappointing because that's about USB 2.0 level. Personally, I think I'd use such a system only for my most valued personal files (documents, family photos etc). In a situation where I'd actually need to access this backup, I wouldn't mind waiting for sure.
No...not a typo. These drives "can" read at 6x.....but that is a maximum. They mostly stay around the 2.5 to 3x read speed for these 4GB installer files (perhaps due to their compression). It's definitely painfully slow...but well worth it for an archive. I still mostly rely on the 16GB external HDD for installs and immediate access.
Post edited April 09, 2025 by RizzoCuoco
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This is my favourite topic
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General discussionLet the Personal Preservation Programs Commence (M-Disc)(20 posts)(20 posts)
(20 posts)