30 Blu-ray Discs In a 1.5TB MiniDisc-Like Cassette

MrSeb writes "Hot on the heels of the most successful storage mediums of all time — MiniDisc and Zip disks — Sony has announced the Optical Disc Archive, a system that seems to cram up to 30 Blu-ray discs into a single, one-inch-thick plastic cassette, which will have a capacity of between 300GB and 1.5TB. As far as I can tell, the main selling point of the Optical Disc Archive is, just like MiniDisc, the ruggedness of the cassettes. Optical discs themselves are fairly resistant to changes in temperature and humidity, and the cassettes are dust and water resistant. What is the use case for these 1.5TB MiniDiscs, though? In terms of pure storage capacity, tape drives are still far superior (you can store up to 5TB on a tape!) In terms of speed and flexibility, hard drives are better. If you're looking for ruggedness, flash-based storage is smaller, lighter, and can easily survive a dip in the ocean. The Optical Disc Archive might be good as extensible storage for TV PVRs, like TiVo and Sky+ — but as yet, we don't even know the cost of the system or the cassettes, and I doubt either will be cheap."

Comments

Sony?

[mcgrew]

Does it have the XCP trojan installed by default? Will they sell you 5 tb and take four of them back with the first "upgrade"?

No, thanks. I'd rather use floppies than buy ANYTHING from Sony. I wish everyone else would stop shoveling money at these evil people as well. I doubt there's a less trustworthy entity on the planet.

Re:Sony?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish everyone else would stop shoveling money at these evil people

They are, and in increasing numbers
Sony posts its worst loss ever
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-04-10/japan-sony-earnings/54144022/1

says it all really, treat your customers with contempt and they will make sure you cease to exist, one way or another

Re:Sony?

[AngryDeuce]

Anyone buying a Sony product these days should have their head examined. I'm not going to bother listing the numerous ways they've fucked over their customers over the last decade (at least), but it's enough for me to greet every new product of theirs with a great, big middle finger.

Then again, it seems there's always someone ready to throw money at Sony for their newest piece of fucking shit that doesn't do what it's goddamned supposed to.

Re:Sony?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have any idea how many things nowadays you use which were created by Sony, contributed to by Sony, or derived from Sony tech? No?

Seriously, this shit is getting old. Judge technology by its merits, not by what one single tiny division of a megacorporation may have done to irritate you.

Re:Sony?

[SomePgmr]

once the sony-bashing boulder has started going, there's no stopping it

True enough, but Sony built the hill.

Re:Sony?

[mcgrew]

Buying computer hardware from a company that has deliberately installed malware on their paying customers' computers is brain-dead stupid.

Re:Sony?

[hairyfeet]

What is sad is once upon a time, before Sony became one of the media cartels, Sony products were once the height of quality. If the OLD Sony were to be the one offering this? i'd jump on in a heartbeat as we really do need a nice long term storage for consumers to replace DVDs. But this is the NEW Sony which means it will be filled to the brim with DRM crap that will make it crippled and buggy. No thanks Sony.

Re:Sony?

[vlm]

This is Sony... remember "memory sticks" where they cost 5 times as much as CF or SD, simply because... they could?

"Special Sony BDR media" will almost certainly be the only kind that will work in the caddy and will cost at least $25 per disk... I would be shocked if Sony allowed its victims to use commodity products instead of Sony brand BDR.

Re:Sony?

[griffjon]

I would at least consider buying it, if Sony would promise not to sue me if I actually used it.

Re:What's the use case?

[Master Moose]

From TFA:

"Unless Sony can get other companies to make and sell ODA drives, though, it will probably just go the way of the MiniDisc."

Hugely popular in Asia?

The many headed dragon of Sony

[tekrat]

Why does Sony keep coming out with "Storage solutions", when the other arm of Sony doesn't want us to save *anything*?

I mean, come on Sony... have you ever considered that those evil pirates are downloading your music/movies because you're giving them the tech to save a billion terrabytes of stuff? What do you think they are going to fill up all that space with?

If computers were only 16mb of ram and a 40mb hard drive, they couldn't save a 4gb movie, now could they? Come-on man, think!