M-DISC
Blank optical disc in Computers
People recommend M-DISC as archival optical media that lasts longer than ordinary discs and reads in standard drives. Main caveat: expensive, and critics doubt current discs match older ones.
People recommend M-DISC as archival optical media that lasts longer than ordinary discs and reads in standard drives. Main caveat: expensive, and critics doubt current discs match older ones.
57 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 34
- criticize it
- 23
- approval share
- 60%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 6 years
Median of the 3 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 34 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 7 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Built to last for decades
“designed, and tested for 100+ years of storage, can be read from a consumer dvd player and cost <$10 a disc”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “A Review of M Disc Archival Capability. With long term testing results” “It uses a mineral layer rather than the typical dyes and pigments to be more robust.”
Comment from 20 Feb 2026 in “Microsoft's new 10k-year data storage medium: glass” “Masked ROMs and M-Discs are those two things which can really last a very long time”
Comment from 6 Sep 2026 in “M-DISC – DVD/Blu-ray compatible discs that may last up to 1000 years” - Comment from 3 Jan 2026 in “Why your early 2000s photos are probably lost forever”
- Comment from 2 Sep 2026 in “Saving money on Google Photos with Immich: Your own personal photo storage”
- Comment from 6 Sep 2026 in “M-DISC – DVD/Blu-ray compatible discs that may last up to 1000 years”
- Comment from 5 Oct 2026 in “Using Blu-ray M-Disk as backup of last resort”
- Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “My Grandma Was a Fed – Lessons from Digitizing Hours of Childhood”
Reads in ordinary DVD and Blu-ray drives
“designed, and tested for 100+ years of storage, can be read from a consumer dvd player and cost <$10 a disc”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “A Review of M Disc Archival Capability. With long term testing results” “M-disc lasts longer and doesn't require pro hardware to read.”
Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “My Grandma Was a Fed – Lessons from Digitizing Hours of Childhood” “M-disc is readable by a standard DVD-ROM/Blu-Ray drive.”
Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “My Grandma Was a Fed – Lessons from Digitizing Hours of Childhood” - Comment from 14 Feb 2026 in “Ask HN: Are there examples of 3D printing data onto physical surfaces?”
Preferred archival option over alternatives
“For real archival needs, options like M-DISC, tape, or cheap SSDs are more reliable than rewritable DVDs.”
Comment from 12 Mar 2026 in “Tested: How Many Times Can a DVD±RW Be Rewritten? Methodology and Results” “Only sensible options were M-DISC and external hard disks.”
Comment from 5 Oct 2026 in “Using Blu-ray M-Disk as backup of last resort” “M-Disk is more reliable for very long term storage.”
Comment from 5 Oct 2026 in “Using Blu-ray M-Disk as backup of last resort” - Comment from 24 Jul 2026 in “Why Sony Can't Bring Back Its Classic Walkman Models”
Few other consumer archival options
“There are still barely any options for archival-quality digital media for regular people. M-Disc is one of them.”
Comment from 7 Sep 2026 on Hacker News “Only sensible options were M-DISC and external hard disks.”
Comment from 5 Oct 2026 in “Using Blu-ray M-Disk as backup of last resort”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Expensive, especially for large archives
“will probably cover most of the scenarios. It's still expensive, though.”
Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Booting a PC from a Vinyl Record” “Because of the cost of M-discs, they stop making sense after 1-2 TB”
Comment from 10 Mar 2026 in “Flash media longevity testing – 6 years later” “If you need longer there are M-Disc's, but they are expensive”
Comment from 10 Mar 2026 in “Flash media longevity testing – 6 years later” - Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “A Review of M Disc Archival Capability. With long term testing results”
Current discs may not match old ones
“currently produced mdisks are not the same as older ones. Requirements for media has been relaxed a while ago”
Comment from 18 Feb 2026 in “Ask HN: Are there examples of 3D printing data onto physical surfaces?” “AFAIK there has never been good evidence that the BD-R M-DISCs have any special sauce”
Comment from 6 Sep 2026 in “M-DISC – DVD/Blu-ray compatible discs that may last up to 1000 years” “M-Disc Blu-Ray discs are made with regular Blu-Ray manufacturing technology”
Comment from 14 Feb 2026 in “A Review of M Disc Archival Capability. With long term testing results” - Comment from 6 Sep 2026 in “M-DISC – DVD/Blu-ray compatible discs that may last up to 1000 years”
- Comment from 6 Sep 2026 in “M-DISC – DVD/Blu-ray compatible discs that may last up to 1000 years”
Niche format with little mainstream use
“The problem with M-disc was that it was always a sideshow on the mainstream optical disc market”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “A Review of M Disc Archival Capability. With long term testing results” “I've always been skeptical of niche archival formats, even ones as robust as this.”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “A Review of M Disc Archival Capability. With long term testing results” “The relative obscurity of the format, the drama around Verbatim's acquisition”
Comment from 6 Sep 2026 in “M-DISC – DVD/Blu-ray compatible discs that may last up to 1000 years”
What people recommend instead
The same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| M-DISCThis page | 34 | 23 | 60% | 7 | 6 yrs3 owners | — |
| CD-R | 7 | 2 | 78% | 5 | 30 yrs4 owners | — |
What people said
40 of the 66 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I've gone all in on M-Disc (and even regular HTL inorganic bluray)”
“I have created an archive on 100-Gb M-disk sealed in a tempered glass enclosure”
“The disks bigger than 50GB require a BDXL drive to read, which means spending $300 on a disk player.”
“The idea being you restore them in chronological order and have a complete set.”
“M-Disks are way less convenient, but pretty reasonable for their cost.”
“Only sensible options were M-DISC and external hard disks.”
“M-Disk is more reliable for very long term storage.”
“There are still barely any options for archival-quality digital media for regular people. M-Disc is one of them.”
“There are still barely any options for archival-quality digital media for regular people.”
“the Blu-Ray M-Discs have always been visually identical to standard BD-Rs”
“The relative obscurity of the format, the drama around Verbatim's acquisition”
“they literally sell the same disc identifier as both m-disc and non m-disc”
“AFAIK there has never been good evidence that the BD-R M-DISCs have any special sauce”
“Masked ROMs and M-Discs are those two things which can really last a very long time”
“This is the only storage media I trust to outlive me.”
“very strong guarantees that it will be readable far into the future”
“The M-disc is a better option for most use cases”
“If you know what you're doing, you put anything important on an M-disc.”
“sounds reasonable for the use case but there is some concern about media authenticity”
“For real archival needs, options like M-DISC, tape, or cheap SSDs are more reliable than rewritable DVDs.”
“There are long term storage type BR discs built for durability”
“Because of the cost of M-discs, they stop making sense after 1-2 TB”
“If you need longer there are M-Disc's, but they are expensive”
“they're explicitly designed for what you're trying to do”
“It uses a mineral layer rather than the typical dyes and pigments to be more robust.”
“currently produced mdisks are not the same as older ones. Requirements for media has been relaxed a while ago”
“have modern digital storage density, good stability, work with commodity hardware”
“I've always been skeptical of niche archival formats, even ones as robust as this.”
“The problem with M-disc was that it was always a sideshow on the mainstream optical disc market”
“It hasn't experienced any noticeable corruption yet on ~22GB of data”
“I'm not sure m disc even makes cost-sense for smaller volumes.”
“designed, and tested for 100+ years of storage, can be read from a consumer dvd player and cost <$10 a disc”
“M-Disc Blu-Ray discs are made with regular Blu-Ray manufacturing technology”
“These are cool as they play back n regular players too.”
“M-disc is readable by a standard DVD-ROM/Blu-Ray drive.”
“I am sure the discs will stay safe for a long time”
“M-disc lasts longer and doesn't require pro hardware to read.”
“will probably cover most of the scenarios. It's still expensive, though.”
“write it to a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-DISC or something similar”
“M-Disc is the only real solution to preserving data a whole lifetime.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.