Panasonic plans to fab 1TB Archival Optical Discs that last 100 years
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.
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Senior Member
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Joined: 2009-11-30
i wonder how much we can trust this
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.
i have seeing some of my CD audio collection degrading ... basically the polycarbonate layer is degrading... some degraded by mold, when we touch the CD sometimes our hand not really clean, those oil, dirt on hand got stick to CD, and over period time it turn to some kind of mold...
especially if you live in humid area, u want to make sure your CD collection in dried storage
other than that, UV light also easily kill any optical disc, especially those dvd-r/bd-r
so the term "long life" is in maintaned condition ... not normal/standard storage i think
but after reading it again, i think its more about data retain in optical disc, rather than the media itself
optical disc retain data much better than magnetic tapes that data might degraded over time
Senior Member
Posts: 1945
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@RzrTrek
why? cause you dont need it?
so we gonna get rid of all the stuff only the "pros" use?!
@slyphnier
1. cd/dvd/bd and STORAGE things like RAM (dvd) are not the same.
2. most IT stuff wont be eating a McRib while handling the disc, so no degrad by dirt.
3. you usually dont have lots of server/data rooms that have windows, ergo no UV (sun light) coming in.
4. most the time the disc are stored in a case and that goes into cabinet or similar.
at least the places where i worked it.
my main problem is with the burn speed. i could never find burners that would support the 8x/12x.
than BD was giving me more space, and now that i swapped all hdds for ssds, its even "worse" (performance when backing up data)..
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i use DVD-RAM for archival few years ago... indeed far better than standard DVD/BD-R
especially the one that incase and you have DVD-RAM recoder that support cased DVD-RAM (like this one http://www.tdk-media.jp/media/dvd-data/bbf39800.html)
but still it will degrade as it using same material/polycarbonate
TDK has been making ultra tough BD-DVD-RAM / -R
that said UV + scratch resistance
like this http://www.tdk-media.jp/media/dvd-camcorder/bbd44800.html
i use some for archiving back in 2006~2010, will check the disc physical condition when i have time later
but i believe nothing can really UV resistance... and DVD-R is really sensitive to UV, even indirect sun-light or fluorescent bulb that have some uv can damage those DVD-R over time
it doesnt need a really dirty hand to make a mold
for people have dry hand it should be fine... but just some sweat will enough to grow mold on the disc
most people dont clean/wash their hand when handing the disc normaly, right?
so even say they dont eat while handling the disc, but its not like their smartphone is clean either, so do their hand
if the cabinet in air conditioned room, probably it will be fine... but cabinet in hot steamy summer... bet some of those will start degrading over years.. i am talking more than a decade though.
not sure why u have problem with burn speed, even its slow, you can burn while other job right ?
burning BD nowdays dont need to be focus on burning ... it wont fail even you start doing other job
for SSD i am not sure why u pick over HDD... price and capacity wise not make sense to me
i would rather use cloud backup rather than SSD
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coffee...came...out...of...nose