The Return of Physical Media? New Disc Can Store 200TB (that’s 2000 PS5 games)

he Return of Optical Media? New Disc Can Store 200TB

Optical discs like CDs and DVDs may be making a comeback for long-term data storage, if new technology developed by researchers pans out.

Scientists at the [University of Shanghai for Science and Technology] have created an ultra high-capacity optical disc using advanced 3D recording techniques. Their new disc can hold a whopping 1.6 petabits or approximately 200 terabytes (TB) of data – vastly more than today’s Blu-ray discs which max out around 128GB.

The breakthrough is achieved by stacking [hundreds of micron-thin recording layers] while keeping the overall disc size similar to DVDs. This leap in density could revolutionize storage for personal and enterprise use cases.

Here are some additional details I can provide about the new 200TB optical storage disc technology:

• – The disc uses blue laser technology similar to Blu-ray, but with a specialized lens system to focus on the micron-thin layers. This allows far more layers to be packed onto a standard size disc.
• – To make the microscopic layers, the researchers use a sputtering process to coat an extremely smooth polymer substrate with storage media like silica glass.
• – Error correction codes help account for any noise or defects in reading data from so many layers. The codes are integrated on-disc rather than relying on the drive.
• – The team claims the disc has a durability of over 10 years. They say the layers are highly stable and resistant to environmental factors that could cause data loss.
• – For read/write speeds, sources indicate the current prototype can handle 100MB/s. This is slower than HDDs but faster than tape. Speeds may improve further with drive development.
• – The researchers say the discs could potentially hit the market within 5 years if development continues smoothly. But adoption would depend on buildout of compatible drives.
• – Possible early adopters are organizations like movie studios and research institutions that need massive cold storage. But prosumers could also be interested.
• – If costs can be reduced enough, the discs may compete with consumer cloud storage for personal media archives and backups.

For data centers, the discs may reduce required space from huge facilities to a single room. The stability of optical media also avoids the need for [data migration] as frequently as with HDDs. And home users could potentially backup all their photos, videos, and documents to one disc instead of multiple hard drives.

The challenge now will be developing affordable, high-speed drives to read the densely packed data. But the researchers believe the media could be made compatible with existing Blu-ray technology. This may allow a smooth transition if the petabit discs make it to market.

Some tech pundits have already declared the [death of optical storage] in the face of streaming, cloud services, and cheap HDDs. But this breakthrough shows there is still innovation ahead. For certain applications like archives and backups, the discs have advantages that tape, flash, and hard drives cannot match.

If the promise holds true, the new storage medium could fulfill the researchers’ vision to “build a digital genome center for every organism on earth.” For businesses and consumers, petabit optical could be the long-term storage solution we’ve been waiting for.