The storage capacity of Blu-ray is not enough for the future as Sony and Panasonic (both members of Blu-ray Disc Foundation) have teamed up to develop the next generation optical storage for professional use.
Like cassettes, the VHS and floppy discs, optical discs are thought to be obsolete in the digital age that we are living. The bloom of flash storage and cloud computing render optical discs almost useless as a storage medium for consumer. Furthermore, Apple and several other major PC manufacturers such as HP, Dell and Lenovo started to exclude optical drive in the design of their notebooks. These phenomenons further threaten the relevancy of optical storage in the consumer market.
Although showing signs of death, the advantage of optical storage still keeps them relevant in several professional industries. According to Sony, optical storage especially excel in long term storage due to the resistance to environment properties such as temperature and humidity.
The duo have previously leveraged the strength of optical storage in developing long-term storage solutions to video production industries and cloud data centers. However, due to the capacity limits of Blu-ray, they are in need of something that can store more per disk in the future.
Thus, the pair agree to jointly develop a new standard for professional-use next-generation optical discs with a capacity of at least 300 GB per disc by the end of 2015. Technical details are not disclosed.
Although useful for professionals, the relevance of optical storage in the consumer space is questionable. Who needs to archive data when we have cloud back-up and on demand streaming services?
Source: Sony
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