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Plexiglass-like DVD to Hold 1TB of Data
jcatcw writes "Lucas Mearian at ComputerWorld has a story about a company that plans to demonstrate a new DVD-format at the January CES conference. The .6mm thick disc stores 500GB of data by writing 5GB of data on each of 100 layers within a polymer material similar to Plexiglass. The Israel-based company, Mempile Inc., said its TeraDisc DVDs will offer 1TB of storage for consumers in the next few years, but it's also targeting corporate data archive needs with the new technology that write bits at the molecular level on the florescent-colored polymer. The company plans to sell its first product, a 700GB disc for $30."
No format war. Please!
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Unfortunately their second product, the disc burning drive, won't be available for several years.
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They're not planning to hit 1TB until 2011. With all the companies in the storage race, I don't see this horizon representing any special accomplishment. It's a neat way of doing things, but so are some of the other contenders in the race.
What I wonder about is the archival quality of their material. How long before it oxidizes or otherwise brittles itself into uselessness? I remember when everyone was saying that CDs would last forever, unlike cassette tapes, and then we found out that CDs were not eternal. Their plastic might take forever to biodegrade, but their data integrity would degrade within 10-15 years. So, even if this turns out to be the winner in the race to a Terabyte disc, how long will it maintain data integrity for archival purposes?
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
I can then fit my entire pr0n collection on just 4 discs!
FTFA:
"Mempile's DVD drives will initially retail for between $3,000 and $4,000, and a 700GB platter -- the first model expected out around 2011 -- will sell for $30"
Assuming DVDs are $30 for 120 GB with a $100 reader/writer, and the new disks are $30 per 700 GB with a $3,000 reader/writer, you crossover with a mass-archive need of ~14 TB.
Which isn't all that astronomical (though enough that its probably not worth it for most personal users yet), and I would presume that as a new technology, both the media and reader/writer costs are going to come down more quickly than with the more established DVDs.
Its not a format war, its a new format. But it *will* be a format war if any of the large firms thinks there is any money in it.
Remember "DataPlay"? A small format optical disk (with an elaborate and complicated DRM system btw) in the early 2000s - they had a new and innovative format. They even got the record companies on their side until the big players (in this case Philips) looked at them, saw they had a business model and crushed them to develop small-form factor optical (SFFO). Of course, SFFO vanished as soon as cheap flash memory was available (low power, no moving part) but the point remains. A single isolated firm will be destroyed by a large multinational as soon as they prove they have a business case. And I bet my metaphorical hat that any array of patents will not affect that outcome in any way.
More information on Dataplay/SFFO available on net, here one's link:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2930-tiny-optical-disc-could-store-five-movies.html
Besides, I've seen a number of multi terrabyte, multi layered optical systems paraded over the last few years - I label this vapor ware until I see it on the shelves. And even then I would not trust my data to it until its been proven in the corporate world.
You do understand that that is how progress happens? When the number of people who have just bought a technology exceeds the critical threshold, new products are announced. Who'se ever heard of a new product announcement for something that hasn't just been bought? How often do you hear of a breakthrough that never led to a product, all because there were too few who has just bought the last generation? You are to be honored, for you are of Those Special Buyers who exceeded the threshold for optical mass storage.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Hmmm, what color is that exactly?
Unless they have found a way to record 100 layers at once, it will take nearly forever to record a disc with this new format. For the same reason, the proposed 3+ layer HD DVD and Blu-ray discs are also not very interesting. More than likely, these efforts are merely for marketing purposes: to show that HD DVD can match Blu-ray, and that Blu-ray has a bright future. Unfortunately, these are both specious arguments, and it is best to judge them on their initial implementations.
One of the few alternative approaches that looks very promising uses co-linear holography on an optical disc. The advantage is that it can record multiple bits in the same area (volume actually) at the same time, so it scales much better with both density and speed. It may be a ways off yet, but one thing is for certain: an optical disc can only spin so fast, and recording bits one at a time simply doesn't scale well.
Blu-ray is the best we can hope for it the near future. From a data storage perspective, it is far superior to HD DVD, and will remain so until they are both obsolete.
Say, you don't happen to work for Sony, do you?
Naw, you can tell because he said you were to be honored, and that you're special. If he worked for Sony, he would have called you an ingrate for complaining in the first place, and lazy for not getting a second job to buy the newest mega-storage format.
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With a terabyte on a single disk this strategy might be useful again. It would be good if software could automate it though - striping the data for me automagically.
This is what Parchives are designed for. You can specify an amount of redundancy (from 0% up to whatever you please, I personally do 30% on DVDs, but I use good media and haven't had many problems, plus I have disk backups as well) and it will create all the parity files necessary. Then you just go and burn it to the disc. Later if the file proves corrupted, you can use the parity files to repair or reassemble it.
It's all open source, which is good for 'future proofing,' and gives you a lot more control than just recording multiple copies of the same file (which limits you to multiples of 100% redundancy).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parchive
http://parchive.sourceforge.net/
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