M-Disc

M-Disc is a variety of optical disc designed for long-term archival storage by Millenniata Inc., supposedly certified to last 1000 years, though one would have to actually wait 1000 years to be sure of the validity of this claim. The original version of this was a variety of DVD, in a sufficiently compatible format to be able to be read by any normal DVD drive, though writing to it takes a special "M-Disc ready" drive. A new variety in 2013 supports BluRay disc format.

M-Discs use higher-powered lasers to carve pits in a metallic layer, rather than simply altering a dye layer subject to fading as normal optical discs do.

History
Originally developed by Dr Lunt at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Originally developed discs used the name M-Arc.

Links

 * Official site
 * Torture testing the 1,000 year DVD (ZDNet)
 * Accelerated Life Cycle Comparison of Millenniata Archival DVD (Report by Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division) (archived)
 * So what's up with the M-Disc? Part 1
 * So what's up with the M-Disc? Part 2
 * Museum of Obsolete Media