PC Gaming

Yeah, normal burners are more like printers, where the write laser activates or deactivates a pigment which then either reflects or absorbs the read laser to represent 0/1. But that pigment can degrade over time, turning 1s into 0s.

M-discs are instead etched and iirc use construcive and destrucive interference so the reader (which is the same reader as normal discs, just the writer needs to specifically support M-disc) reads the 0/1. It will also degrade over time, but since it's a thicker layer of difference, it will last significantly longer than a thin layer of pigment. And I bet that special m-disc specific readers could be made to read it again after it degrades to the point where the interference technique stops working, since an image could still show where the high and low points are, even if the waves don't align perfectly anymore.

In practice, I've found that the drive was way easier to find than the media for m-disc. Like most optical disc writers these days seem to support it but the discs are expensive af compared to non m-disc.

Though when I was going through my old burnt CDs and DVDs, I was surprised at how well they were holding up. I was expecting at least some read errors by now but everything has been fine so far.

Well, other than the data quality lol. Not like the readability of the file but stuff that took days to download back then would download today in seconds and a good monitor I got well after my early files was only 720p for its resolution. The data I prized as a youth is kinda sad today.

What about Verbatim AZO? I've heard good stuff about those, and they're not expensive.

Also, as far as CDs go, I've found that an old degraded player which doesn't read burned discs anymore but plays pressed discs will still play burned AZO discs just fine.

blu ray in this economy?

Are tape drives still a thing?