Sony and Panasonic have thrown a lifeline to the fast-fading optical disc, with the announcement of a new Archival Disc format that will eventually store up to 1TB.
Cloud storage and the ever-falling cost of high-capacity hard disks appeared to have virtually killed off the optical disc, at least as far as the PC market was concerned.
However, Sony and Panasonic have teamed up to develop a successor to Blu-ray, dubbed Archival Disc, which - as the name suggests - is designed for professional, long-term data storage rather than consumer use.
The pair said the first Archive Disc will launch in summer 2015, with an initial capacity of 300GB on the double-sided discs. That will grow to 500GB and then 1TB, as the companies improve the data density.
The new format will be pitched at specific industries. "In recent times, demand for archival capabilities has increased significantly in the film industry, as well as in cloud data centres that handle big data, where advances in network services have caused data volumes to soar," the companies claim in a press statement.
It's not the first time someone has attempted to break the terabyte barrier with optical discs. TDK announced 1TB Blu-ray discs back in 2010, which comprised of 32 layers (16 on each side), with each holding 32GB. However, the individual recording layers were more than twice the thickness permitted under the Blu-ray specification, potentially leading to read/write errors.
The 300GB Archival Disc requires only three layers on each side.
-1.jpg&w=100&c=1&s=0)
.png&w=100&c=1&s=0)
