As each day passes law enforcement and government agencies struggle with managing more sources of digital evidence and multimedia, like body worn cameras. The massive amounts of data storage required have led many to finally consider secure cloud-based storage solutions, but as some have found out, despite the minimal capital investment cloud storage costs can quickly exceed the LE & IT budgets of even the largest agencies. Let's break this down and talk specifically about digital evidence and archiving.

How are you archiving all of your digital evidence today? A tiered storage solution? Hybrid cloud solution? LTO tape? Hard drives? Optical discs (i.e. CD-R, DVD+/-R, BD-R)? Lots of questions and options, so lets talk specifically to the last group; those using optical discs.

If you believe what Apple is saying about the dying media format that is the CD/DVD (hence the lack of optical drives on the MacBook Air and the latest refresh of the Mac Mini), then you have to wonder why would a company still attempt to innovate the CD despite reports of its declining status. However, if you believe that optical media is still the best way to back up your data then perhaps the M-Disc might be something you could be interested in.

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