Intersting story, Panasonic announced it is going to mass produce next gen optical discs with increased capacity. They have started this project together with Sony. They are available in 500GB capacities already, but Panasonic plans to increase volume to 1TB. 

The discs are called ‘Archival disc’, reports myce today and it is claimed that the storage unit can retain its data for more than a 100 years:

Higher capacities in optical storage are made possible due to smaller sized pits and marks and shorter wavelength lasers and improved drawing rates. In the case of the ‘Archival Discs’, Panasonic adopted 2 new technologies to realize a capacity of 300GB per disc. Where the land areas between grooves is traditionally unused, Panasonic has found a way to record data on land tracks as well, a technology it calls “land-and-groove technology”.

Optical discs have great potential to further enhance their recording density (storage capacity) with technological advancements in, for example, signal processing technology. If we compare the growth in the recording density of HDDs, optical discs, and magnetic tapes, in 10 years, from 2016 to 2026, the recording density will improve by 7~15% for HDDs and 30~46% for optical discs. For magnetics tapes, the increase is estimated to be less than 30%. To estimate the longevity of the media, industry standard acceleration tests were conducted. Error occurrence rates were measured in temperatures 30℃ and above and in less than 70% humidity. These tests estimate that Archive Discs can reliably store data for more than 100 years. On the other hand, hard disks have a lifespan of a few years, and magnetic tapes a dozen or so years.

Because optical discs have a long life, unlike hard disks and magnetic tapes, there is no need to regularly migrate data from degraded media to new media. Moreover, optical discs do not require operations or cooling of facilities that are associated with hard disks, therefore, long-term storing of data on optical discs can reduce power consumed as well as costs incurred. If 1PB (petabyte) of data are stored for 20 years on HDDs, magnetic tapes, and optical discs, with widely available HDDs and magnetic tapes, the costs come out to be around the same, whereas with optical discs, it is estimated that the data could be store at half the cost.

Another technology used on the Archival Discs is,”Crosstalk-cancelling technology”. This technology cancels crosstalk noise generated by adjacent tracks. This should ensure playback quality without read errors, even with narrow track pitches.

You can read more on the tropic here at panasonic.

Panasonic plans to fab 1TB Archival Optical Discs that last 100 years