As Sony exits, Verbatim doubles down on optical media — stable supply of discs is a "top priority" despite shrinking market
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Verbatim is doing more than just keeping the formats on life support – it also unveiled new hardware at CES 2025. Its Slimline Blu-ray Writer lets you back up 4K video to Ultra HD Blu-ray and even comes bundled with antiquated Nero disc burning software.
This is the important part imo, given that LG and Sony both pulled out of the USB Blu-ray reader-writer market
https://www.verbatim-europe.com/en/blu-ray-writers/products/external-slimline-blu-ray-writer-43890
Means we'll be able to rip Blu-ray's into the future. At least, that's what I hope. Need to check there are cracks for these writers.
EDIT: Won't link to it here, but many Verbatim writers, UHD and otherwise, use Pioneer hardware internally and are therefore crackable.
M-Disc/Archive Blue ray discs are currently pretty much unrivaled if one needs WORM(write once read many) storage for important data.
Anything cloud is an issue in that regards, while a few options exist that somewhat imitate WORM to comply with regulations they are often expensive, harder to maintain and, if long term storage is required, prohibitivly expensive.
The next option, Tandberg RDX needs a far less popular writer, it's WORM media is far more expensive, far more sensitive towards exterior influences and it's much harder to make sure you will be able to read the data in 20 years.
LTO is nice, the tapes are somewhat cheap but the drives are extremely expensive - far to expensive for smaller businesses or consumers.
(And please for the love of god, normal exterior HDs,etc. are NOT backup media for long term storage, especially not WORM- which is important in times of ransomware attacks)
So in the end verbatim would be an absolute idiot to destroy this market. I work with a lot of smaller healthcare facilities and they all exclusively work with them - they routinely burn their data on a M-Disc that is then stored in a secure location, as they all need to provide their patient records for at least 10, mostly for 15, in some cases for 30 or more years. The doctors can literally go to jail if they do not comply with that.(And getting hacked or your building burning down is not an excuse)
As a CEO of a small company we also need to retain certain tax and accounting data for 10 years, some for 20 years. And even as a individual I have some stuff I legally must retain for 10 years.
And of course photos of important life events and some documents (insurance, mortgage) are also something I don't want to loose if the house burns down. Therefore the important stuff gets burned to a M-Disc three times a year and then locked into a bank vault quite a bit away.
What do people normally store one write one mediums I feel like I'd have a hard time working with write once items except for like maybe just music storage
Personally I store all "Very important data" on it - things I really don't want to loose even if my data storage at home and my cloud storage gets compromised. Among them:
(*: This is more a theoretical choice - as I can get 100GB media for the same price as the 50GB I currently simply copy the full paperless file storage. But the script normally only copies these. They are flagged with a custom field in paperless)
I do not use addition to the storage,so no "these files are new since the last copy" but I simply make a full backup of these files every time (usually three times a year). This reduces the risk of one backup being compromised - very likely I only fall back 4 month which is tolerable. The discs itself are stored in a locked box in a bank vault a bit further away. I have to go there a few times a year anyway,so it's not hassle. (And they have great coffee). The box costs me 50€ a year and has enough room for 50 years of M Disks and a few extra items.
Anything taxation related must be stored for 10 years even by private individuals here,so there is that.
My customers (smaller health care organisations, e.g. your fellow neighbourhood dentist or GP) usually store patient data and accounting data on them. They need to store them long term (up to 30 years) for legal reasons, additionally they don't want a opposing lawyer to later tell them "you have manipulated the data". Having multiple copies that cannot be manipulated reduces that claim to "you manipulated before you stored it" and we have other ways to fight that.
How are external HDs not a backup? Sure if it's left attached 24/7 it would also get caught by ransomware potentially but otherwise surely that is what external media is good for?
Most of my data isn't that important, but have a script that can sync a live copy to several locations over the LAN and create a timestamped compressed folder of it, usually keep a few of the timestamped copies on external media.
External HDs are good for short term backup - I do use them for that myself.
But they are not suitable for long term backup, they are susceptible to damage, sector errors,bit rod and interference.
If you leave them unpowered for longer times the chances that the mechanical components are gonna fail are actually increased.
Some of these issues can be reduced,but never fully.
Additionally there are ransomware viruses that directly attack them - they intentionally encrypt the backups first when the drives are connected before they attack the live data. And in at least one case I know of the attackers bricked the HD firmware.
Therefore for long term storage of really important things WORM (write once read many) media is to be preferred - even if the attackers can access the disk for some reason they cannot alter the once written data.
I have a stack of Verbatim blanks I bought years ago just in case they ever stopped being sold; I’ve actually used quite a few to create daisy disks and audio CDs.
I still burn discs every now and then. Definitely glad to see I don't have to panic buy stockpiles of them now.
Unfortunately I don't think Verbatim manufactures any quad-layer discs, so Sony was the only real option for 128GB disks.
Furthermore, M-Disc is still very pricey per-GB, and their non M-Disc BD disks aren't priced that much better. I've also recently got a spindle of Verbatim BDXLs that every single one would fail to either write or read at the layer transitions, so having a single option here is already proving to be painful.
Disc failure is the verbatim I remember, but I'm glad they're still around. My 2008 car has a 6 disc CD changer, and I have a few retro PCs which rely on CDs too. Yes, I know I can get adapters for CF cards and the like, but doing things the old way is the whole point.
Who is going to keep making Minidiscs though?
Can someone tell me, why weren't optical discs (mechanically, ergonomically) designed similarly to floppies? In a protective envelope with a window.
Sony PSP discs had something like that. More expensive and impractical from looks, the window part was always open and cleaning it from dirt is inconvenient if untouched for long. But then the cover for that window wouldn't break off, and the looks solve the problem of "looking obsolete" that arises with clueless baboon crowds. Sony engineering back then somehow evokes feelings in me.
Og CDs came in a protective case like that, as did some large optical discs. But I guess it was just cumbersome and needlessly expensive to make the hardware?
Yes, but scratches.
Looking up the Hutchinson Encyclopedia pictured above: which one of you did this?
CD-ROM discs came in caddies early on. They weren't popular with consumers I would guess. MiniDiscs were designed with a protective caddie.
I'd guess because they already had a protective layer in the plastic they're made from. At least enough to protect during actual use, and not infants scattering them all over the floor.
I can't say I've ever lost a disc to physical damage.
I was the infant and have destroyed many discs.
MicroDisc also was like a floppy.
And IIRC, that format was also a Sony thing. They were always small tho, and had less capacity.
Price. Once the industry retooled the production lines, CDs became dirt cheap to reproduce, and successive generations of optical media are only somewhat more expensive. Plastic shells and mechanisms cost money. CDs are probably the cheapest physical audio format ever (at least as far as production costs are concerned).
Verbatim for the win
So we should still buy all the MD and MiniDV tape we can get our hands on though
Work to preserve physical media across all your entertainment. You give away your leverage as a consumer with every stream and digital "purchase" (because of course you legally own nothing digital from these companies, you lease the right to access them, until that company decides you no longer get that access, see Sony)
I did get a ~128 micro sdxc (micro center branded) for free, so, im kinda on the fence, but wont mind rocking a cd player again!
I've had good luck with their stuff so I'm pleased
This is good news. I burn my some of my medias to DVD and Blu-ray discs.
Hi, I have some questions about this. I'm interested in storing movies and tv shows on Blu ray discs. If I burn video formats onto discs how hard is it to get those to play back on various different Blu ray players. I imagine it's simple when it's connected to a PC but what about through typical Blu ray players you might plug into your tv or a gaming console like a PS4?
As long as they are the right region format for the DVD player they should be fine. Ripped files don't really have region formats anymore, but you can add the appropriate one in most burners.
You can also get region agnostic players but that's probably harder to do now than just making all your media in the right format.
https://www.verbatim.com.au/products/m-disc-bdxl-100gb/
100 GB, and a lifespan of hundreds of years, it's hard to top that.
Mine usually have the life span of 1 toddler encounter
500gb for ~100 US dollars is not bad* (just saw it is AU). I don't think I'd ever need something quite so long lasting and will we even watch or interact with media the same way in like 40 years? Movies and screens may get phased out for holo or something no ones even dreamed of yet.
If the burner is cheap enough, or you can borrow one, backing up family photos in a way that will be viewable in hundreds of years time would be worth it to me.
Not sure where you're from, but that website link is Australian and $150 AUD is about $94 USD at the moment.
I only have an estimated 96 remaining years on this planet. Why would I care about my data after that?
We regularly look at photographs taken at the dawn of photography, and read documents created hundreds or even thousands of years ago.
There is a use case for this tech.
If only they weren't so expensive.Edit: OK not terrible for AU dollars. Missed that.
But still, a 20TB backup would be $4K USD. Too hefty compared to even redundant magnetic storage.
Nothing stops people from mix matching backup media.
If I lose the series I downloaded versus my family photos, not the same impact.
The fuck are you backing up that you have 20tb of?