Level 1

27 points

How to use M-Disc on macOS with third-party software?

M-Disc: Mac mini (late 2012); macOS (12.7.6).

Just like using Blu-ray disc (read only and/or write) on macOS requires using third-party software.

Does the same apply to using M-Disc? Any support from Apple via macOS software, ie, Disk Utility and/or at the Finder level?

LG BD Rewriter (with M-Disc label on Rewriter). M-Disc would be compatible with Blu-ray drives and/or players (25 GB).

Thx, JMH :)

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: M-Disc usage...

Earlier Mac models

Posted on Mar 9, 2026 4:09 AM

Top-ranking reply

Kurt Lang

Level 9

69,234 points

Posted on Mar 9, 2026 9:21 AM

M-Disc supports these write options:

M-Discs are available in capacities of 4.7 GB (DVD), 25 GB (Blu-ray), 50 GB (Double Layer Blu-ray), and 100 GB (BDXL Triple Layer Blu-ray). They are designed for long-term archival, utilizing a ceramic-like material to store data that can last for centuries.

In other words, the same options as dye-based disks, but with the added need for a drive that can burn an M-Disc.

According to reports I found online, people often use Toast Titanium on a Mac to write M-Discs. I can confirm with the latest (and likely last) version of Toast Titanium, it can write these sizes:

That said, Toast Titanium is Intel only software. And all Intel apps will die near the end of 2027. The next major macOS release late this year (likely to be named macOS 27) will be the last to run Intel apps. The one after that (assume macOS 28) will be native Apple Silicon only.

Other places I found said you can use macOS' built-in Burn utility to write an M-Disc. I assume you're only looking to write data disks, so that should work.

Express Disk Burner (available on the App Store) is another that is said to write such disks. Again, it's the drive you're using. The software itself, like Toast, does not actually say M-Disc. You just choose a matching Blu-ray disk size.

One thing to think about. M-Discs are said to last possibly centuries. But!, that's only useful if anyone has a working drive that far in the future, or if anyone is still making them. It's far, far more likely your data will have to be transferred at some point to a newer storage system as M-Discs go the way of essentially everything in the world of computers.

I mean, all of these have died just since I started on the front end of personal computers. And I've used every one of these:

10" floppy disks
5 1/4" floppy disks
3 1/2" floppy disks
SCSI
Parallel
Firewire
USB 1 (with version 2 also not being used in essentially anything now)
EGA
VGA
DVI
IDE
Syquest drives
Zip and Jaz drives
MiniDiscs, LaserDiscs, and early Magneto-Optical (MO) drives
DAT (Digital Audio Tape), Exabyte 8mm, 9 track tape formats
5.25" hard drives (you can probably still find them, but not many)

And that's not quite everything. So someday, M-Disc will join this list, and probably a lot sooner than you would think. CD, DVD and Blu-ray are already approaching their end.

View in context

23 replies

Mar 9, 2026 4:25 PM in response to Kurt Lang

Kurt Lang wrote:

Ugliest one: We took a 300 MB hard drive out of one of Scitex towers to trash it. It took up an entire bay and weighed (not kidding) at least 200 pounds. It took four of us to pull the drive out and move it onto a cart. Heads were so far away from the platter surfaces in those days, all that was needed to keep the drive clean was enough air for dust to get blown out by the spinning drive. There wasn't even a cover over the platters or head mechanisms.

I've never seen or used one in person, but there was the IBM RAMAC 350, the world's first commercial hard drive.

DataRecovery.com – The IBM 350: Weird Facts About the First Commercial Hard Drive

It stored all of 3.75 MB of data. It weighed about a ton, and required a separate air compressor unit that weighed 441 pounds. You couldn't buy it – you could only rent it. According to the above article, IBM almost canceled it – because it threatened their punch card business.

Tom's Hardware (September 14, 2025) – BM announced the world’s first HDD, the 3.75MB RAMAC 350 disk storage unit, 69 years ago today — unit weighed more than a ton, 50 platters ran at 1,200 RPM

"Only after it achieved 800ms data seeking performance did the first of these disk storage units get rolled out to customers." It was also "about the same size as two kitchen refrigerators put together."

Today, hard drives might have seek times of 4 to 12 ms and they get slaughtered by SSDs that have seek times of 0.08 to 0.16ms. So the RAMAC 350 had seek times something like 5,000 to 10,000 times worse than a SSD.

Kurt Lang

Level 9

69,234 points

Mar 9, 2026 4:51 PM in response to Servant of Cats

I have read about those in the past. The picture I saw that went along with the article showed them moving the drive in a huge crate.

Kind of like our very first computer we bought for use at home. An IBM XT clone that came with a (wow!) 30 MB hard drive! What were we going to do with all of that space!

Kurt Lang

Level 9

69,234 points

Mar 9, 2026 5:02 PM in response to H AND J

I don't recall what model it was. Too long ago.

All I know is it was almost impossible to keep running. You'd get maybe four prints done, then the ink would start globbing in the upper left corner of a sheet. Then you'd have to run the calibration routine - AGAIN! - to fix it.

And that would almost always mean you had to profile it - AGAIN! Spent more time just trying to keep the Iris running than getting anything usable off of it.

It was a bit surprising you even knew what Scitex was. Usually, I get blank looks when I mention to anyone I used to work on their equipment. Just for fun, how many of these do you recognize? I worked on all of these in the print shop I was at. Though not much on the drum scanners.

HeII and Crosfield drum scanners. Scitex Eray film plotter. Scitex retouching stations (in succession) Pixet, Imager I, Imager II, Imager III. Those R300 systems later replaced by Intel CPU based Assembler, Rightouch, Prisma, Prismax.

H AND J Author

Level 1

27 points

Mar 9, 2026 5:43 PM in response to Kurt Lang

Ah, thinking… my brain hurts. :)

Didn’t work the scanner, a Linotype drum with PMT hooked up to a Mac Quadra (900 with PPC accelerator installed, think in PDS). This Mac also had some sort of optical network card installed into a slot. Some of the scanner images too big even for a MO disc.Another Mac was a part of this optical network to receive image files.

The imagesetter was a Linotype 630 had its own dedicated hardware RIP (internal half drum, light source was reflected off a mirror on a worm screw and supported Hexachrome colorspace CMYKOG).

All of this during the rise of DTP. Did someone say Service Bureau?

My brain still hurts!