This IS the Avid L2: [Avid-L2] M-Disc - 100GB Optical Disc with a 1,000 Year Shelf Life

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

[Avid-L2] M-Disc - 100GB Optical Disc with a 1,000 Year Shelf Life

I did the core research in the post below for a client of mine and decided to reformat it to give something back to the Avid-L. However, be forewarned, this is a long post, so if you're not interested, don't read it.

Disclosure: I am in no way affiliated with, subcontracted by, or employed by this company. This post is not a promotional piece, advertisement, or anything in-between. And, I was not paid or compensated, in any way, for writing it. I am simply a user of their products.

M-DISC is a mineral-based optical disc that holds up to 100GB of data and has a reported shelf life of 1,000 years. The principal difference between this product and the current crop of optical media is that these discs do not use organic dyes that fade and decay. Instead, M-DISCs use a data layer consisting of chemically stable, heat resistant metals and inorganic materials that are reported to last centuries. In other words, data is 'engraved' into the M-DISC by physically altering the recording layer and creating permanent surfaces in the disc.

The US Department of Defense (DoD) tested five different brands of archival-quality, gold dye-based recordable DVD discs and the M-DISC DVD. The tests were conducted to determine which media would hold-up under the harshest environments over long periods of time. None of the M-DISC media suffered any data degradation at all. Every other brand tested showed large increases in data errors and many of the discs were so damaged that they could not be recognized as DVDs by the disc analyzer.

M-DISCs have been around for a while, although they have previously only been available in DVD (4.7GB Single Layer) and BD (25GB Single Layer) sizes. Today, M-DISC released 100GB BDXL discs and the data densities are finally beginning to make sense for larger archives. Note that at this time, the website has not yet been fully-updated to reflect the newly-released BDXL discs.

As most on this list probably know, BDXL discs are the successor to the original single and double layer Bluray Discs, which have capacities of 25GB and 50GB respectively. BDXL discs are designed to hold 100GB and 128GB and are principally targeted for distribution of 4k/UHD media.

M-DISCs can be burned in a very wide variety of commodity-priced, consumer-level optical drives, and can also be burned using ultra-slim optical drive form-factor drives that are integrated into laptops. Not surprisingly, optical drive manufacturers have gotten behind this format in a big way, most notably Hitachi and LG.

In fact, if you happen to have a more recent DVD or BD burner in your computer or facility, take a look at the front panel to see if the M-DISC logo is there – it is on all of my HP computers and standalone burners. The M-DISC logo on the front of the drive means you can burn M-DISCs that are supported by that particular drive (DVD, BD, BDXL).

But the more important part of this equation is that M-DISCs are 'backward compatible' and can be read in any other optical drive. In other words, while you need an M-DISC-compatible drive to 'write' or 'burn' a disc – any other consumer drive can 'read' them. That means your archives can be read in any other optical drive in your facility, or your client's facility – and the data is random access.

In terms of pricing, when purchased in 50-Pack quantity on the M-DISC website, the DVD unit cost is $2.78 each, while the BD unit cost is $4.40 each. Note that today's release of the larger 100GB BDXL product means that supplies are limited, and 15/50-Pack quantity pricing is not yet available. More specifically, the largest size of BDXL discs is currently limited to a 5-Pack and the unit cost in that quantity is $19.90 each. This represents a small price premium compared to purchasing 4-25GB BD discs having the same storage capacity for a total cost of $17.60.

Obviously, on a comparative basis, you would need 25 -100GB M-DISCs at a total cost of $497.50 to equal a single native 2.5TB LTO6 tape which is typically priced at ~$35. As such, on face value, a direct comparison to LTO6 appears quite unfavorable.

However, M-DISC is clearly not an archival solution that is meant to compete directly with LTO6, unless of course you have a lot of money and your archive sizes dovetail nicely with M-DISC sizes. Notwithstanding, I cut plenty of spots and short form projects that could easily fit on 1-4 discs. And, frankly, I wouldn't care too much about burning a bunch of M-DISCs to back-up larger projects, especially if they were unlikely to be endlessly revised. My archiving costs are typically billed back to the client anyway. Of course, if you go down this road, you might have to 'chunk' your Avid MediaFiles folder into 100GB slices, but that's no big deal.

Another factor to consider is that LTO hardware and software can easily cost $5-10,000. And that number doesn't include potential annual LTO software maintenance contracts and the likely necessity of dedicating a higher-end computing platform to a tethered LTO drive, although that obviously doesn't apply to a network-enabled LTO drive.

Conservatively speaking, at the very bottom end of that price range, and with the current limited quantity pricing for the BDXL product, $5,000 saved equates to being able to purchase 251 -100GB M-DISCs with a total storage capacity of 25TB. And if you're facing a total cost of $10,000 for your entire LTO solution, it's obviously double that. But again, M-DISC size limitations have to be acceptable for your workflow, including the lack of cataloging.

Frankly, in addition to project archiving, there are many other uses for M-DISC, including show masters & protections, archiving sound effects and stock music libraries, DI and final mix elements, photos and client artwork, as well as accounting and tax records – all of which are frequently stored on spinning media in my world. For those purposes, I use the smaller DVD and BD versions of M-DISCs, as they are less expensive and more closely match the size requirements of those files.

M-DISCs can also be used for file-based deliverables that need to be shelf-stable for many, many years, albeit within the 100GB capacity constraint. My clients and vendors already have DVD and BD drives, all of which are automatically capable of reading M-DISCs with no problem. And clients who would need the larger 100GB storage capacity of BDXL discs wouldn't blink at spending ~$50 price for a new BDXL drive. That's a petty cash expenditure, and the BDXL drive they purchase doesn't even have to be an M-DISC-compatible drive (not that they cost any more) if all they need to do is read my discs.

The broad 1,000 year claim is certainly a potential point of concern. However, the DoD tests linked below instill quite a bit of confidence and Hitachi has incorporated M-DISC into their Digital Preservation Platform (DPP) which is an archival solution marketed to federal governmental agencies. An M-DISC lifetime study conducted according to the ISO/IEC 10995 Standard indicated that the expected mean life was 1,332 years and that the expected 5% failure time was 667 years.

For me, the more important issue is that I don't need 1,000 years of longevity. At most, I need 20-30 years. And, frankly, I really only need a very reliable 5-10 years, at which point the fast-paced world of technology will likely deliver a 'next gen' storage solution that replaces LTO and M-DISC. For the near term, M-DISC offers a solution that avoids the inevitable failure of solid state and mechanic storage, as well as the data rot of organic dye-based optical discs.

If you can deal with the pricing and capacity issues, the arguments for this technology include:

- A slew of commodity-priced drive options that can burn M-Discs (~$50)

- Discs can be read in any other optical drive -- on any other computer

- Interface options include: USB, Firewire, Thunderbolt, eSATA and SATA

- Burners can be easily swapped between different computing and OS platforms

- No need for HBA (Host Bus Adapter) or proprietary hardware/cabling

- No need for a dedicated high-end host computer (e.g.: LTO)

- No need for proprietary drivers, middleware, software or catalog migration

- No risk of a LTO software vendor 'falling down' and their product becoming EOL

- Random access to folders and files with no 'hunting'

- Compatibility and interoperability with clients and vendors (regardless of their technical sophistication)

- Media has no moving parts and the read mechanism has no physical contact with media

- Media is resistant to temperature, light, humidity, water, RF, EMI, magnetic and mechanical failure

- Media does not need to be 'exercised' several times a year (e.g.: hard drives)

- Existing ecosystem of optical media cases, mailers, shippers and labeling options

- Small and robust form factor helps with shipping to clients, vendors and offsite storage locations

For those not using a LTO-based solution for critically important data-at-rest, and who are rolling-the-dice relying on individual hard drives for that purpose, M-DISC would at least add a layer of backstopping. The same might hold true for those using NAS boxes running RAID5/6.

And for offsite archives (which really should be considered a mandatory requirement), M-DISCs offer a nice form-factor that can be put in a standard cardboard mailing shipper or UPS/FedEx envelope, and they are resistant to the physical, magnetic and environmental issues associated with shipping and offsite storage, which are often times beyond our control.

M-DISC is clearly not for everyone, but I like the idea of being able to restore data using any optical drive on any computer, and not being reliant on 3rd party software (or the software company's ability to survive in the market).

I'm not suggesting for a moment that this technology replaces LTO, or the sophisticated software products that support it. However, there are a number of use-cases for which this product might offer a viable solution, and for that reason, I thought I'd share it with the Avid-L.

Here are some links for those who are interested:

M-DISC Home Page:

http://www.mdisc.com/

M-DISC Store

http://store.mdisc.com/

M-DISC Technology:

http://www.mdisc.com/mdisc-technology/

M-DISC Test Data:

http://www.mdisc.com/proving-ground/

M-DISC Drive Compatibility:

http://www.mdisc.com/m-ready/

Department of Defense Naval Air Warfare Test: