In July 2013, Panasonic and Sony announced a partnership to create a new type of archival storage, showing off a cartridge filled with 300GB optical discs, called “Archival Disc“. Settle-down those salivary glands – this format is being targeted squarely at corporations, at least right at the start.
The single write 300GB discs are set to launch sometime in 2015, and it’s expected that their size will expand to 500GB and eventually 1TB each. Currently, the discs are double sided with three layers per side, and they use the same wavelength laser that is used for Blu-rays.
Panasonic and Sony are both very experienced in the field of high capacity optical media; they are who brought us the Blu-ray disc. There is no doubt that the Blu-ray has not caught on like the dvd did, mostly thanks to cloud services, streaming movies and games.
Mentioned above, the Archival Disc is being targeted at corporations, but in time we would hope that it could trickle down into consumer hands. I sure wouldn’t mind having a spindle full of writeable 1TB Archival Discs!