Sony and Panasonic have reportedly developed an optical disc called the "Archival Disc" for enterprise storage with an initial capacity of 300GB that would be readable for at least 50 years.
The next-generation disc will be launched in the market in 2015 and its current capacity will be expanded to 500GB and then 1TB later through signal-processing technologies including multi-level recording technology.
According to PC World, Sony and Panasonic are pushing the optical discs for cloud service companies and archival services amid the explosion in online data and the companies plan on marketing the discs separately under their brands.
A Panasonic spokesman said that as a type of archival media, optical discs have numerous advantages over current mainstream HDD and tape media, such as their ability to be stored for a long time while still maintaining readability, adding that the company hoped to develop demand for archives that use optical discs.
The spokesman said that the development was specifically for professional archiving and the company was not currently considering optical discs for household consumer use.
