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JohnJ254

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 22, 2020
3
0
I have a question that has been indirectly addressed but I want to ask directly (before I make a misguided purchase)

Is there a specific reason why Blu ray didn't really take off in regards to archiving data with iMacs (or in general)?

Is it that people interested in saving stuff long term are good with DVD M disks or is there something else?

Thanks
 
I think that they do, by my plan was to simply burn once for archiving.
 
My answer is a guess.

I reckon that the vast majority of Bluray users buy a Bluray drive solely for viewing movies, and NOT for "archival" purposes.

And since Steve Jobs didn't want Bluray "on the Mac" in the first place, BD has "crept into the Mac world" very slowly, even today.

So... you'll find very few Mac users who use BD discs to archive data.
The primary reason for this being that you won't find all that many Mac users with BD drives in the first place.

Having said that...
I understand that there are two kinds of BD discs:
- those that use dyes for the recording process
- those that DO NOT use dyes for recording (these are NOT "M-DISCs", just regular BD discs).

...Along with a "third kind" of BD disc -- those that are labeled as "M-DISCs", which also don't use dyes.

When buying BD discs, you want to buy either the "M-DISCs" -or- the "non-M-DISC" blanks that DO NOT "use dyes". The reason is that dye-based media can deteriorate sooner. The "non-dye" discs can last many years, decades... hence the M-DISC claim of discs that can last centuries.
 
Fishrrman,

That is very helpful - so the lack of Blu Ray use for data archiving in iMacs is to some extent a political thing?
I was worried it was something more then that - because it seems like a great format for many iMac types.
But your theory makes sense.

My plan was to use the Blu Ray M discs; I am happy with the M disc DVDs but their capacity is only 5GB so it seems time and cost effective (eventually) just to take it to the 25GB level. Above 25GB, it looks like they take forever to burn - this could be a reason the format didn't take off.

thanks again
 
...so the lack of Blu Ray use for data archiving in iMacs is to some extent a political thing?

Perhaps back in the early days of the format when Macs still shipped with optical drives as standard. But Apple has not shipped optical drives with Macs for close to a decade so I expect it is now a case of people favoring other storage options (cloud, NAS, etc.).
 
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