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brothertruffle880Flag for United States of America

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What are the best Blank DVD's? Why?

Are all blank DVD's the same?


I don't mind paying extra for a high quality blank.

Can someone provide me with links to articles discussing what makes a great blank DVD. 

Anyone do a comparison of various brands?


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Seth Simmons
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if you really want good quality and long-term storage, look at m-disc

http://www.mdisc.com/
Best for what? I haven't burned a disc in years. Sometimes you just need to burn an ISO to install an OS. Other times you are storing precious home video or data files as an "archive". Sometimes you just want a transportable video library. Some disks may be more compatible with different readers than others.
There is no "best" blank DVD. You can scratch every DVD & then it is unusable, or you can store it improperly, & again you can't read it. There are also big differences in how well the DVD Drives are calibrated, so if you write a DVD or CD on one Drive, it may be readable there, but maybe not on another. The Media Quality doesn't matter in any of those cases. Besides all that, the big DVD-R manufacturers usually label their products for other companies as well, often with a "no-name" Label, but the product itself is the same as the more expensive version with the actual Manufacturer's Label.

It is far more important to burn the DVD's at the lowest speed available, & then handle them carefully & store them in a cool, dry, dust-free, dark place.
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Dear Everyone:
I will be using the DVD's for archiving photos, videos and documents.
If you can recommend specific brands, that would be great.
If you can recommend specific types of coatings, materials-used-in-manufacture, that would be great too.
If you can recommend NOT USING certain brands, that would be useful too.
Interesting question.

See this thread here  https://club.myce.com/t/actual-list-of-dvd-r-r-manufacturer/397766

It appears that the brand on the disc may not be the manufacturer anymore.  I use and prefer TDKs, I've tried Verbatims and had problems with them.  So they are out.  I'm not sure if TDK make their own any more.

I do have some Kodak CD-Rs that claim to have up to 300 year archival life.  Perhaps some day I'll try them.

And I'll copy and paste from rindi  It is far more important to burn the DVD's at the lowest speed available, & then handle them carefully & store them in a cool, dry, dust-free, dark place.

And make more than one copy and store offsite.  And test them every now and again.

Something I forgot to mention, besides making more than one copies, you should at least try different brands for each copy, or at least try other batches, as very often, if one disc is bad, the whole batch is unreliable.
I wouldn't use DVDs for long term archive and storage, because they are not made for long term storage.
  • They have a limited shelf lifespan. Some experts say not to expect more than 5-10 years depending upon storage conditions. 
  • It's getting more and more difficult to purchase devices that can read/write to DVDs, and this is only going to get exponentially worse over time.
  • The offer little/no external protection of your data
Seth is giving you great advice on the use of M-Disc, I would take it. I would also consider cloud storage if it's available to you. Hope this helps!
As @Andrew Porter said, DVDs aren't meant for long term storage, as they degrade over time + eventually will stop playing.

Instead use an SSD drive, which will last much longer, be faster to keep current, way easier to work with over time.

Tip: You can purchase an EXOS 18TB drive off Amazon for <$400 now... for a massive amount of storage.

I run these in RAID1 pairs, to provide for massive storage space.
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nobus
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Hi Everyone.
Thanks to everyone for useful answers and suggestions.
Some of you suggested that I use the cloud, or some other method of archiving because DVD's were not meant for archiving.  
Unfortunately, I do not have a choice to do this.  I am complying with the terms of a government contract.  So, I cannot use "better" methods of storage.
These types of suggestions also popped up when I posted a question about a problem I was having running an app on Windows 7.  Many people said "The solution is to upgrade to Windows 10".  I can't!  The PC's don't belong to me.  BTW, some government agencies in New York City/New Jersey are still using Windows NT and Dos 6.22 for some of their apps. Your well-informed suggestions cannot be implemented in the surreal world of government. Good luck trying! 

Saying this is for a government contract would have been really helpful.
How long is the data supposed to be available for?
Tape and certain types of optical media are designed for data retrieval a decade or more after writing, given suitable storage conditions.
It always depends on the context on how those systems are used. DOS normally doesn't have any networking capabilities, & so it wouldn't be that susceptible to attacks. NT is more problematic in that sense. But it is the Connection to the Outside (Internet, Floppies, DVD's, etc.) that cause issues.

I am sometimes astonished that governments that use such outdated software haven't been attacked more. In my opinion any contractor that works for any Government has a duty to make that government aware of the shortcomings, & if they don't comply, refuse to work for them.
Your well-informed suggestions cannot be implemented in the surreal world of government.

considering you never stated your specific requirements in the beginning - not sure what else you were expecting