A new technology for optical discs

[Lashiec]

Despite the struggles between HD DVD and BluRay discs for the HD discs niche market, some companies are looking forward to the future developing new discs capable of holding all kind of information, whatever its size may be. This article talks about a particular one that looks beyond today's needs, and developed a new format capable of storing 1TB of data in one disc, and with further optimization could reach 5TB. All of this hosted in your usual-looking optical discs, no bigger and no thicker that any DVD or CD.

[attachthumb=#]

The article is fairly long, as it makes a timeline of optical discs technology, explaining how the technology works, and later gives some details about TeraDiscs, as the technique used to record these new type of disk is significantly different from the old combination of pits and valleys. It also includes a interview to a higher-up of Mempile, the company developing the new format.
via The Tech Report

[housetier]

I haven't read the article yet.

But I am sure we still haven't seen the end of this process: storing more and more digital data in less and less (analog) atoms.

I shall go read the article now :-)

[Lashiec]

5TB ought to be enough for anybody

[Armando]

5TB ought to be enough for anybody

Until next week...

[f0dder]

5TB ought to be enough for anybody

Just how puny is your pr0n fine arts collection? 

[BinderDundat]

I once saw an estimate (admittedly about 10 years back) that the entire library of Congress could be stored in about 3 Terabytes.  The only problem is getting the data onto the disk.  Optical scanning is still far from 100% reliable and entry by hand would take decades or even centuries for proper data verification.  Then there is the question of retrieving information hidden in such a vast haystack.  Hopefully, the creators of disks with such capacities would index the information somehow.  You've heard of RoboHelp?  Well we need a RoboIndex function.  Google Desktop Search?  Maybe an index based on GDS could be included with the disk?  I recall seeing an announcement that a prototype of the terabyte disks would be available by early next year.  Unfortunately, it can only hold 300 Gb! 

[f0dder]

You wouldn't/shouldn't use optical discs for a massive data collection, imho... better to use a massively redundant RAID.

[Armando]

You wouldn't/shouldn't use optical discs for a massive data collection, imho... better to use a massively redundant RAID.

I agree!
Optical media : good for multiple backup of archives, maybe (and only if it's cost effective)
I've opted for Hard Drives ONLY after having too many problems (speed + data loss) with optical media.