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I agree, but it's worse than a shame: it's an indictment of the tech industry!

We have the entire planet storing all sorts of important business and personal data digitally - and no longer a good, common way to ensure it lasts even a decade.

For DVDs: Walmart still sells a USB reader/burner for $30. Also I'd bet something will be able to read recordable disks in the future even without drives. Maybe a super super high resolution (compared to now) picture can simply be used to get the data from it visually in 30-40 years.

> Such a shame the disk format is dying.

On one hand, yes, it's dying. On the other, a PS5 can play DVDs, so there's one class of popular, modern hardware where it's alive and well.

If you’re talking about this post, it’s just someone who was misinformed. https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/s/cmxnECtgAv

> Verbatim clarified that these discs were advancements. The technical changes resulted in a different appearance and the ability for higher burning speeds, the changed media-ID was due to an adaptation with regard to other Verbatim products. Verbatim had already shipped the first modified media in early 2022. The data security of the new discs is not inferior to that of the old discs: Data should also last 1000 years, according to the manufacturer.

Also, the storing it outside isn't a very good test of how long it will last inside.

Also also, M-Disc is like Imax, a theater could have that label because it projects 70mm film into a dome or because it's a regular movie theater with a lower resolution than your phone screen that licenses the rights to the name. There are M-Disc DVDs that use a special archival technology that requires compatible drives, but the M-Disc Blu-Ray discs are made with regular Blu-Ray manufacturing technology. With both Imax and M-Disc, they require a minimum quality level to license the trademark, but exceeding that quality level is far from exclusive to that trademark.

Ideally the test should include the number of bit errors that were corrected using on-disc ECC. This could then also be used to estimate disc lifetime (preferably using multiple samples).

I have a script that creates a hash based on all files in a directory - photos 2004. Then save the hash separately to a text file.

I have 3 copies so I can check the archive version, active storage volume, and local version to see if any lost integrity in the transfer process.

I’m curious how it would compare against my old CDs and DVDs that were previous backups. My work does something similar for tape drive data.

As tested, it doesn't matter because the disc didn't even have a UV safe resin. The lifespan of the data area is only meaningful if the rest of the disc is intact.

Granted, archival discs aren't designed for full-sun exposure to start with, so in theory, the failed disc could have outlasted the other under real-world archival conditions, and this test wouldn't reveal that.

> Please do not say LTO tapes.

Literally every single reply to this comment mentions LTO; never change HN.

You can still buy brand new LTO-4 and up from a brief search - I think due to the enterprise use cases it’ll hang around longer than any other format. Tape existed before the HDD; it’ll be there watching HDDS pass away into the ether too. Probably a few tape drives on the Starship Enterprise somewhere.

More seriously; you can buy used lto-7/8 for very little these days, and the tapes are extremely cheap per gb. The drives are somewhat loud; it’s not a beside device for sure. I’m finding it a bit of a pain to manage a good backup strategy with them.

New drives must read and write the previous generation of tapes and they must read the tape generation that was before the previous.

The larger issue with tapes is that the small magnetic domains don't hold data as long as the mechanical changes in optical disks.

> The drives are huge

You can get 5.25" bay drives.

> The drives are huge, noisy, expensive, and they have a very quick deprecation policy (new drives cant use old tapes).

Sure but old drives are widely available at low prices.