I recently decided to link my old CD/DVD writer to my Mac. It’s been languishing in the spare room for a long time. I didn’t have many CDs anymore. When I moved almost a quarter century ago, I disposed of most of my CD collection as it was too troublesome and expensive to ship. When I moved again, another ten years later, I took the collection I had built up to Goodwill, as it was too costly to bother shipping most of them. The few I kept, I didn’t play much, as I had ripped all the previous library to mp3 files on a hard drive before disposal.
I had purchased an external Apple CD/DVD writer to use with my original Mac Mini, which I got in 2014. Very occasionally, I’d put on a music CD. As for DVDs, I had never really bought very many at all and was down to perhaps one or two. We had gotten broadband with a decent bandwidth, and so, like many, we streamed music and video for the most part. I’m not a huge video watcher, in any case.
I recently got a high-res audio player: an Atell & Kern SR35. It was an open-box deal, so I got it for an excellent price. Around that time, we bought a new TV, and I went for a new home cinema system to go with it.
A voice in my head (I often get those) told me to get a Blu-Ray DVD player, too. It was a somewhat illogical choice considering, as I mentioned above, I only had one or two DVDs.
Around this time, I missed the bus while going home from work one afternoon. The next one was flagged up as arriving in about twelve minutes. It was rather cold out that day, so I went into the charity shop by the bus stop.
They had a section selling used CDs, DVDs and Vinyl. The prices were crazy low. I got a half dozen CDs and a couple of DVDs for a pound each. I took them home and played them. The Charity shop has become a habit, and I’m now building up a decent collection of CDs and DVDs again. Mostly older stuff and some UK TV box sets that either my wife or I will enjoy; I have bought a couple of brand new CDs online and a couple of Blu-Ray DVDs, too.
Now, to get back to the beginning, I want to be able to play CDs on the Mac, too. I have a reasonably passable Bose 2+1 system connected to it. That original Apple CD device is as dead as a dodo.
I researched, which led me to buy a machine from OWC. It reads and writes CDs, DVDs, and M-Discs.
This is where it got interesting. I had never heard of M-Discs. Now, I won’t go into the technicalities of the format much here, but apparently, the dyes used in regular media are organic and will break down over time. On the other hand, M-Discs use inorganic dyes and are reckoned to last a thousand years or more. As I drink so much coffee, I will be immortal (coffee increases your lifespan). I’ll let you know how that works, but only if you drink as much coffee as I do. Look me up around 3025. Of course, in reality, there will be a bunch of M-Discs lying about with nothing to read them on. By then, we’ll probably wear a headset that feeds directly into our brains and transports us to a live concert without going anywhere.
I digress. I have bought a pack of large M-Discs. The largest size is currently 100GB, which is enormous compared to a few years ago but relatively small. My aforementioned Hi-Res music player has a micro SD card that’s 500GB, and it will take up to 1TB cards. That’s a lot of music, even at enhanced bit rates. Oh, and yes, I’ve nearly filled it up already. I’ve not added up how many hours of music I have in my pocket. Remember, it’s not streaming, so I can listen anywhere.
Back to the M-Discs. I haven’t used any of these M-Discs yet, but I think I will possibly use them for archiving photos. They’re not really a backup solution, as like regular CD/DVD discs, they’re WORM (Write Once, Read Many). I have the rolling backup solution already with Lightroom Cloud, and Backblaze continuously backs up my entire system, including my external 16TB USB drive.
So far, I’ve only touched on the longevity of optical media. I started to wonder about it, but my interest was further sparked by finding a box with some optical media (CD and DVD) in the depths of the spare room. Haven’t we all got a spare room/garage/attic where stuff will be forgotten for years? I got the box out and went through the media.
I found a CD I had written around twenty years ago, full of mp3 files. It’s several dozen tracks of pop hits from 1976. Played through without stopping, the CD would run for around eight hours. I made many of these back then for use in the car. There was no Apple Paly or streaming music as such back then, and as I had purchased a new audio unit for the car I had at the time that would play mp3 format files from CD, it was a great option to have hours of uninterrupted music while on a road trip.
I no longer have a car and rarely get a rental to make such trips, so those days are gone. However, I still need a portable solution for travelling on public transport or walking, which I can satisfy by combining the Hi-Res player and my iPhone.
I parted company with most of those mp3-format CDs as Internet bandwidth increased, along with the quality of streaming. Why would I want to play MP3s when I have Apple Lossless?
Anyway, I put the twenty-year-old CD into the Blu-Ray player connected to the hi-fi, and it played with no issues at all—no errors, skipping, or missed tracks. My wife and I had a lovely evening listening to almost fifty-year-old pop tunes from our youth with a couple of glasses of wine while lounging in bean bags in the living room. Getting out of a bean bag at the end of the evening is another story entirely.
So, dear reader, if you’ve not gone to sleep by now, or I haven’t bored you to death with my ramblings, I can tell you that a home-written CD lasts at least twenty years if stored securely in a jewel case. All the CDs I purchased in the late ‘80s are long gone, so I can’t check those, but I understand that commercially written media is more robust and should last a lot longer than those written at home. Someone, please correct me if I’m wrong.
Perhaps this week, I’ll finally get around to archiving some of my photographs to one of these M-Discs. Keep drinking the coffee, and see you in 3025!