M-DISC's design is intended to provide greater archival media longevity. Millenniata claims that properly stored M-DISC DVD recordings will last 1000 years. The M-DISC DVD looks like a standard disc, except it is slightly thicker and almost transparent.
Compatibility
M-Discs are readable by most regular disc drives.
History
M-DISC developer Millenniata, Inc. was co-founded by Brigham Young University professors Barry Lunt and Matthew Linford, along with CEO Henry O'Connell and CTODoug Hansen. The company was incorporated on May 13, 2010 in American Fork, Utah. Millenniata, Inc. officially went bankrupt in December 2016. Under the direction of CEO Paul Brockbank, Millenniata had issued convertible debt. When the obligation for conversion was not satisfied, the company defaulted on the debt payment and the debt holders took possession of all of the company's assets. The debt holders subsequently started a new company, Yours.co, to sell M-DISCs and related services.
Materials technology
While the exact properties of M-DISC are a trade secret, the patents protecting the M-DISC technology assert that the data layer is a "glassy carbon" and that the material is substantially inert to oxidation and has a melting point between 200 and 1000 °C. M-DISC uses a single inorganic recording layer, which is substantially inert to oxygen, but requires a higher-powered laser. M-DISC DVD does not require the reflective layer. Thus, both the M-DISC and inorganic BD-R physically alter the recording layer, by burning or etching a permanent hole in the material, rather than changing the color of a dye. Besides physical damage, failure of the reflective layer, followed closely by degradation of the data layer, are the primary failure modes of all optically recordable disks.
Durability claims
According to Millenniata, the U.S. Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division of the U.S. Department of Defense found that M-DISC DVDs are much more durable than conventional DVDs. "The discs were subject to the following test conditions in the environmental chamber: 85 °C, 85% relative humidity and full spectrum light". According to an accelerated aging test of the French National Laboratory of Metrology and Testing at 90 °C and 85% humidity, the DVD+Rs with inorganic recording layer like M-DISCs were still readable after 250 hours, however with an error rate above threshold, and were rated "less than 250 hours" equivalent to competing offers. The performance was: better than several DVD brands using organic dyes, where discs were not always readable after 250 hours; slightly lower than another brand which achieved a lower read error and was rated "250 hours"; much less than glass DVD technology which was rated "more than 1000 hours".
Commercial support
Recorded discs are readable in most conventional drives. Available recording capacities are similar to other optical media from 4.7 GB DVD-R to 25 GB, 50 GB BD-R and 100 GB BD-XL. Due to their translucency, the first DVD M-DISCs had difficulty distinguishing the writable side of the disc, so color was added to distinguish the sides and make it look like the coloring on standard DVD media. Asus, LG Electronics, Lite-On, Pioneer, and Verbatim produce drives that can record M-DISC media. Ritek produces M-DISC Blu-ray media, sold under the Ritek and M-DISC brands. Verbatim produces co-branded discs, marketed as the "Verbatim M-DISC".
