Verbatim 96320 UltraLife 4.7 GB 8x Gold Archival Grade DVD-R, 5-Disc Jewel Case

by Verbatim

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 5.7 x 2.1 x 5 inches ; 1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000WTO352
• Item model number: 96320
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #40 in Electronics > Accessories & Supplies > Blank Media > DVD-R Discs
• Date first available at Amazon.com: March 28, 2008

Product Description

Size: 5-Disc

Verbatim 96320 UltraLife 4.7 GB 8x Gold Archival Grade DVD-R, 5-Disc Jewel Case

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

100 of 101 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Expensive and Stable, February 14, 2009

By 

Daniel G. Lebryk (Chicago) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Verbatim 95355 UltraLife 4.7 GB 8x Gold Archival Grade DVD-R, 50-Disc Spindle (Electronics)

The reason you should be looking at these DVD blanks is to make archival storage discs. Regular DVD's, or really inexpensive ones, are reported to have a very short life after burning - even if you store them properly - even in the one or two year range. It's been reported that these Gold foil DVD blanks will last longer. There is also evidence that says the Taiyo Yuden blanks last a very good long time. The blanks do appear to be tougher than my usual Sony discs, but I didn't do any Brillo pad tests.

I purchased these Verbatim blanks to back up some irreplacable video files, which had been converted from VHS to DVD. What can be said about the 24 I burned, they burned beautifully, were extremely high contrast when you look at the business side of the disc, and play on every single DVD player we've ever thrown at these. There wasn't a single coaster burn in the set (my coaster rate using Sony DVD blanks is around 1 in 100). I've burned maybe 3 or 4,000 DVD's on every imaginable brand of DVD, and these are the sharpest looking burns I have ever seen.

On longevity, well that's almost impossible to comment on today. Verbatim says some incredible number of years. Nobody should ever believe that claim, dyes just cannot last that long. But they should be good until the next storage media arrives.

One sensitive point with DVD blanks is the reflective layer behind the dye layer. Most are aluminum, which if ever exposed to air, will tarnish and lose reflectivity rendering the disc useless (depending of course on the location of that tarnish). These Verbatim discs avoid that problem from ever happening, gold will not tarnish and lose it's reflectivity.

What a person really has to consider when they look at a digital archive strategy, is using multiple back up places. DVD's can fail over time, or become unreadable. I don't subscribe to the format nonsense or scare tactics many like to toss around about incompatible reading formats where drives to read a particular media will cease to exist. A person can still get 5 1/4 inch floppies converted to other formats (8.5 inch discs are almost impossible to convert now), and that size floppy has been gone for well over 10 years now (if you were asleep for 10 years you could still get that data off those floppies). In the case of these irreplaceable movie files, I chose to use these Verbatim discs. Made three copies of each DVD on Taiyo Yuden blanks for day to day viewing (they are lacquer based discs and are so optically flat that you can see all the way to the bottom of a 100 spindle through the center - they are also about 1/4 the price). I saved the Video_TS folders on two separate hard drives, one of which is only turned on to copy to or from for critical backups. And one day I will copy all these files up to a service like Mozy. I will then have 5 separate copies in three different physical locations. Ah most would say overkill, but these are important files. I'm following the exact same strategy for my 25,000 digital images.

These are without question excellent DVD blanks. In my experiece I've never seen a better blank for critical archival work. They are expensive, but they are cheaper on a per gigabyte basis than a hard drive. If they last 1/4 of the 100 years Verbatim claims, I'd be super happy. Just remember, hedge your bets with critical files - put them in multiple places on different media.

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Works with Macs!, January 27, 2008

By 

Chris Kitze (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Verbatim 95355 UltraLife 4.7 GB 8x Gold Archival Grade DVD-R, 50-Disc Spindle (Electronics)

If you tried the Delkin gold DVDs on your Mac and discovered you are the proud owner of 50 new gold colored coasters, take heart. These Verbatim discs are the tickets, they work great and should last 100 years, longer than most of us. The only downside is I've been using 4x speed to insure they work every time. Your best option at the moment for archival backup.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Solid gold., May 8, 2007

By 

Nancy Beiman "Northernexpress" (Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Verbatim 95355 UltraLife 4.7 GB 8x Gold Archival Grade DVD-R, 50-Disc Spindle (Electronics)

These discs are lovely and actually do appear to weigh more than other discs. The data transfers well and none of them have been defective so far (I've used about 15 out of 50.) This is a good price for a good product.

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