M-DISC (Millennial Disc) is a write-once optical disc technology introduced in 2009 by Millenniata, Inc.^[1] and available as DVD and Blu-ray discs.^[2]

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M-DISC

Media type	write-once optical disc
Encoding	Universal Disk Format (UDF)
Standard	DVD, Blu-ray, Blu-ray BDXL
Developed by	Millenniata, Inc.
Manufactured by	Millenniata, Verbatim, Ritek
Dimensions	Diameter: 120 mm (4.7 in)
Usage	Archival storage
Extended from	DVD+R, BD-R, BD-R DL, BDXL-R TL
Released	2009

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M-DISC's design is intended to provide archival media longevity.^[3][4] M-Disc claims that properly stored M-DISC DVD recordings will last up to 1000 years.^[5] The M-DISC DVD looks like a standard disc, except it is slightly thicker^{[by how much?]} and almost transparent with later DVD & BD-R M-Disks having standard and inkjet printable labels.

The patents protecting the M-DISC technology assert that the data layer is a glassy carbon material that is substantially inert to oxidation and has a melting point of 200–1,000 °C (392–1,832 °F).^[6][7][8]

M-Discs are readable by most regular DVD players made after 2005 and Blu-Ray & BDXL disc drives and writable by most made after 2011.^[9]

Available recording capacities conform to standard DVD/Blu-ray sizes: 4.7 GB DVD-R to 25 GB BD-R, 50 GB BD-R and 100 GB BDXL.

M-DISC developer Millenniata, Inc. was co-founded by Brigham Young University professors Barry Lunt, Matthew Linford, CEO Henry O'Connell and CTO Doug Hansen.^[10][11][12] The company was incorporated on May 13, 2010, in American Fork, Utah.^{[13][citation needed]}

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.

As of the 2020s, there are only 2 licensed manufacturers' M-Discs: Ritek sold under the Ritek and M-DISC brands and Verbatim produces co-branded discs, marketed as the "Verbatim M-DISC".^[14][15]

128 GB BDXL never made it to market due to the 2016 bankruptcy.

Early in 2022, Verbatim changed the formulation of their "M-DISC" branded Blu-rays. These new discs could be written to at faster rate than previous ones, at 6x speed instead of 4x. The new discs also had different colouration and markings compared with older ones. Later in the year customers accused Verbatim of selling an inferior product and deceptive marketing.^[16] Verbatim responded that the new discs were a further development of the older discs and should have the same longevity, and that the technical changes therein were responsible for the altered appearance and higher write speeds.^[17]

M-DISC passed the testing standards of both ISO/IEC 10995:2011^[18] & ECMA-379 with a projected rated lifespan of several hundred years in archival use.

The glassy carbon layers, in theory if preserved correctly in an environment like a salt mine, could store the data for over 10,000 years before going outside of readable spec. However, the polycarbonate plastics, which are commonly used by almost all optical media and heavily in CBRN and ballistic protective equipment due to their optical, physical impact and chemical resistant properties, have a lifespan rating of only around 1000 years before degradation.

In 2009, testing was done by the US Department of Defense (DoD) producing the China Lake Report^[19] testing Millenniata's M-Disk DVD to current market offerings from Delkin, MAM-A, Mitsubishi, Taiyo Yuden and Verbatim with all brands using organic dyes failing to pass the series of accelerated aging tests.

From 2010 to 2012, the French National Laboratory of Metrology and Testing (LNE) used high-temperature accelerated aging testing,^[20] at 90 °C (194 °F) and 85% relative humidity inside a CLIMATS Excal 5423-U, for 250 to 1000 hours with a mix of inorganic DVD+R discs from MPO, Verbatim, Maxell, Syylex & DataTresor. The summary of the tests states that Syylex Glass Master Disc was rated for 1000+ hours, DataTresor Disc 250 hours+ & M-Disk under 250 hours. The Syylex disc was a custom-ordered product that could not be burned in a consumer player when they were still purchaseable from Syylex before their bankruptcy, so it isn't really in the same category as the others.

In 2016, a consumer Mol Smith^{[21][unreliable source?]} did real world stress testing on the 25GB BD-R M-Disc alongside TDK's standard BD-R 25GB disc using a copied movie, which demonstrated the reliability of M-Disc's molding compared to standard discs; after 60 days of outdoor direct exposure the M-Disk was played without error, while the TDK disc was physically destroyed.

In 2022, the NIST Interagency Report NIST IR 8387^[22](Page 12), stated that M-Disc is an acceptable archival format rated for 100+ years.

While recorded discs are readable in conventional DVD & BD drives, they can only be burned by drives with firmware that supports the slightly higher power mode that M-Disk requires for burning its inorganic layers,^{[dubious – discuss]} as such writing speed is typically 2x speed.

Typically, the M-Discs cost 1.5–3x the price of standard Blu-Ray discs with DVD M-Discs now having sparse availability.

With the first-generation DVD M-DISCs, it was difficult to determine which was the writable side of the disc due to being near fully translucent, until coloring and later labels similar to that on standard DVD discs was added to discs to help distinguish the sides preventing user error.

Asus, LG Electronics, Lite-On, Pioneer, Buffalo Technology, and Hitachi-LG produce drives that can record M-DISC media while Verbatim produces M-DISC discs.

The regional government of the U.S. state of Utah has used M-Disc since 2011.^[23]

Some consumers and avid datahoarders have adopted the format for cold digital data storage.^[24]

Accelerated thermal tests are only representative from a materials science perspective, this data is mostly used for manufacturing development, in the real world these discs would never pass 50 °C in real world situations as even basic burial archival depth of 1–2 meters would keep them in the >20 °C range.^{[citation needed]}

Ideal storage condition, e.g., 15 °C and 10% RH

Controlled storage condition, e.g., 25 °C and 50% RH, using the Eyring model

Uncontrolled storage condition, e.g., 30 °C and 80% RH, using the Arrhenius model