Blu-ray successor in the works

The two Japanese electronics giant say they want to develop an optical disc capable of holding at least 300GB of data by the end of 2015; by contrast, normal dual layer Blu-rays can only hold up to 50GB. Both companies have previously developed products based on the Blu-ray format. However, given the expected future growth in the archive market, they now want to expand the capabilities of optical discs to accommodate much larger volumes of storage. Sony previously commercialised a file based optical disc archive system in September 2012. The system houses twelve optical discs within a compact cartridge as a single, high capacity storage solution. Each disc within the cartridge holds 25GB capacity, offering a total range of storage capacities from 300GB to 1.5TB. In July this year, Panasonic launched its LB-DM9 range of optical disc storage devices. The series uses a dedicated magazine of just 20.8mm thickness to house twelve 100GB optical discs. A maximum of 90 magazines can be stored, providing a total storage capacity of 180TB. [Image courtesy of vhsdvdfilmtransfer]