M-Disc for data backup, proper "Image Options"

[getgray]

Long time imgburn user and contributor.  About to burn my first M-disc.  I have a LG full height player that says M-disc on it's front (Model BE16NU50).  100G M-disc, this will be a data file backup.

What are the best settings to create this disc with? :

Mode 1 or 2?

UDF only or UDF+ISO9660, or something else?

Which UDF revision?

Anything else I need to know?  Damn discs are pricey, I want to get it right on first try for obvious reasons.

 

 

[dbminter]

Really, you won't have to worry about any setting for data backups to M-Disc.  There's nothing special about M-Discs that requires any special changes to image file settings.  It depends on what you're backing up.  Depending on the file names and characters used in them, you may get by using ISO9660, but I'd recommend staying with UDF purely.  Whenever I do data backups, I always use UDF 2.60.  The discs read fine in Windows 10.  You may not want to use UDF or such a newer revision if you want the discs to be readable on older versions of Windows that don't support UDF or the latest revision of UDF.

[getgray]

Filenames are just "normal" windows filenames, longer than 8 characters.  Typical documents, executable, photo files.

I would like them to be readable in Windows 7 but could live with 10+.  What would change to make it compatible with Win 7 ?

Thanks for the help.

 

[dbminter]

UFD 2.60 is "read only" in Windows 7/Vista/8/10, whatever that means.  So, as long as you don't format the M-Disc as a giant floppy for future additions of files, which ImgBurn doesn't do, I don't see you'd have a problem reading it in Windows 7.  But, to be safe, you could probably enable UDF 2.50, just to be sure, since that is both read and write enabled in Windows 7.

 

You'd probably only encounter problems with older UDF and ISO9660 with filenames that contained odd characters, like Japanese.

[getgray]

Definitely read only is all I need.  I'd assume M-discs were one way one time anyway.  In any case, I'm writing with the intent of long term storage.  Thanks you very much for the help.

 

[getgray]

First burn of 98GB was successful with UDF (only) and 2.6.  I didn't change any other settings except naming the disc label.  Well, I can read it from the same drive anyway.

Thanks again.

 

[dbminter]

Yeah, I've been using UDF (only) 2.60 for years now on Windows 10 for all my data file backups and they read fine.  I only ever change the settings from my defaults when creating DVD Video or BD Video discs, and I let ImgBurn make the necessary changes for me when it prompts me for those media.  In fact, BD Video may not even need changes, just DVD Video to UDF+ISO9660 1.02

[getgray]

While I have someone knowledgeable's attention:  Can a "regular" BR player (or BR drive) read my M-discs?  Or does it have to be M-disc compatible to read, too.  Didn't know if these were "special" for read and write or just for writing.  I don't have a normal player I can check with.  Asking so I know what is necessary to have to do a restoral of the data in case of disaster.

 

[dbminter]

I'm not sure if you need an M-Disc drive to read a written M-Disc BD-R.  I know with M-Disc DVD, as long as you have a drive that reads DVD+R, it will read M-Disc DVD's.  I believe even standalone DVD movie players will play DVD Video discs burned to M-Disc DVD's if that player supports playing DVD+R.  I believe M-Disc was specifically made for this kind of compatibility.  So, I'd guess an M-Disc BD-R burned in an M-Disc capable drive would read on a standard BD drive.  Be aware, of course, since you used a TL disc, you'd need a BD drive that supports reading TL media, and not all BD drives do.

 

Of course, if you always buy an M-Disc capable drive, you won't have to worry about it not being able to be read back in. 

 

As for restoring, it depends on what you backed up and how you backed it up.  If you used ImgBurn to just add files and folders to an image file job, then all you can do is use File Explorer to drag and drop the files/folders in Windows/File Explorer and replace the files in the destination if they already exist.  If you're more concerned about restoring an entire drive from disaster, you'd be better off investing in a drive imaging application like Macrium Reflect (Which is what I use and also offers file and folder backups.) or True Image (Which I've used in the past but don't recommend any longer and it used to support file and folder backups 10 years ago when I last used it.).

 

So, if you're looking to restore something like Windows, then Windows/File Explorer isn't the way to go as you can't just replace files in Windows/installed applications and expect it to work.  You'd be better off served by an imaging application.  And what you can do is create images to a local HDD and then use ImgBurn to copy these images to an M-Disc for archival purposes.

[getgray]

No, just restoring simple files, mainly photos and mov's.  No image needed.  Thanks

 

[dbminter]

Then simply dragging and dropping files/folders should be good enough for what you need.  With something like Reflect, you can just simply restore a file and folder backup and it will restore the nested folder structure, too.

[getgray]

Thanks.  I have the data arranged in ~<100GB "M-disc-[n]" folders with their respective sub-folder structures.  So I just backup the 100GB folder "chunk".