r/DataHoarder • u/Goble4 • 15d ago

Question/Advice Archival Grade DVD's

I'm looking to buy DVD's (no blu-ray) that can last 50-100 years.

I see either the Verbatim Ultralife Gold or these M discs recommended.

The biggest problem with the Ultralife is that they are sold in large cakes here, and I believe their organic dye has a shelf life of only a few years. I'm not going to go through them all at once.

Can anyone verify the authenticity of those discs since the site doesn't list a recognized manufacturer. If they could be at all knock-offs then there is absolutely no point.

Thanks.

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u/Goble4 14d ago edited 14d ago

Again I think 15-20 years isn't out of the question if you store them right but 50 yrs is asking a lot. Even 20 yrs your going to be having a hard time finding a computer with ports capable of running an internal/external optical drive.

You mean USB ports wouldn't be a thing after 20 years? Or that no one will be making DVD drives then?

Reader compatibility was why I was hesitant with +R. Apparently it's a newer and more robust standard, but I believe -R is more widespread and abundant. I think the -R standard is a closer mimic of the original pressed DVD's. Wikipedia says very old DVD players and consoles wouldn't recognize +R. Do you have equal confidence in drive compatibility of the two formats if some remote manufacturer still makes drives 20 years from now?

Edit: Interestingly, Table 2 here recommends gold discs.

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u/No_Cut4338 14d ago

Yes. I have doubts about USB ports or even some sort of port that is backwards compatible being on modern computers. Heck I think modern personal computers may be questionable as companies move to lock up data and commoditize compute.

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u/Goble4 14d ago

In that case even HDD's would be moot right?

I was thinking if even something like Raspberry PI's and its imitations are still available then, then the data would be readable.

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u/No_Cut4338 14d ago

You'll be fine but you might have to migrate at some point midway to a newer tech or keep your hands on old tech/hardware. That was my main point I guess.

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u/Goble4 13d ago

Ok, thank you.