GE has announced a breakthrough that will let it store 500GB or more on an optical disc. This is great, but wasn't Blu-ray supposed to be the last mass-market optical format?<BR><BR><a href='http://meincmagazine.com/gadgets/news/2009/04/ges-500gb-optical-discs-who-is-going-to-use-them.ars'>Read the whole story</a>
GE's 500GB optical discs: who is going to use them?
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Blu-ray fits 1080p but it's compressed. It'd sure be nice to be able to watch uncompressed 1080p movies...
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">And by the time there's a demand for even higher-quality media, one would hope that our broadband infrastructure will be sufficiently improved that we could digitally distribute data-intensive content (movies, games, music, etc.) with very large file sizes. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>By the time these disks come out, we may be able to stream 720p or even 1080p, but neither are close to the bit rate that you could put on a 500GB disk. Also, you could put an entire season of a TV show or all seasons on a single disk.
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Wow, I never expected a "who needs a bigger x" article on Ars. Personally, assuming the price wouldn't be astronomical, I would snatch this up in a second. I'd love to be able to do full backups of my computer to offline storage without needing to burn a hundred DVDs.
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I can see there being some market for writable storage. Uncompressed video from an HD camcorder (even at today's resolutions) takes up a lot of space. As a backup/storage solution in the form of cheap media, I can see this being viable.<BR><BR>I don't know if that's enough of a market to make it worthwhile to roll this out, though.<BR><BR>Finally, let's not forget the folly of Bill Gates' famous "640KB ought to be enough" quote. Looking back, it seems silly. Who knows where things will go in the future.
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by brownd4:<BR>Blu-ray fits 1080p but it's compressed. It'd sure be nice to be able to watch uncompressed 1080p movies... </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>At that point the size of the disk would be less important than the bit rate.
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If it has good shelf stability, it might be nice for archiving. Still would need two of these disks to back up a terabyte hard drive. Depending on how quickly you can write to it, it could be reasonable for many users to do overnight imaging of key systems.
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It would be interesting to see this technology put into a hard drive form. Instead of "burning" a disk to back up my stuff, i simply would hook up an optical cable to the back of the tower (which houses the laser) and be able to back up directly to an array disks (10TB back up drive lol).
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Math Skills ftw. 500GB / 4000 is 125 MB. Not 1.25 MB.<BR><BR>Although, the comparison is silly. Since after all, our brains do not retain data the same way as a machine. So there is no way to measure it.
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Damnit! After years of reading Ars, I just registered to correct the 125MB line, but to be beaten by a minute!
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GE may have an use since they deal a lot in medical equipment. The could use this storage to better document patient procedures. You could probably store every bit of data coming from a stereotaxis device, which is amazing in itself.<BR><BR>They have 5 or 6 monitors displaying information as well as input devices controlling the procedure. I could see it being used to store information about a procedure if need be, though I imagine it could be stored on the network just as well.<BR><BR>Having an entire season or a show on one disc would be delightful too.
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by elemnt14:<BR>It would be interesting to see this technology put into a hard drive form. Instead of "burning" a disk to back up my stuff, i simply would hook up an optical cable to the back of the tower (which houses the laser) and be able to back up directly to an array disks (10TB back up drive lol). </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>In 2 years we will be approaching that density with standard magnetic platters. Probably surpass it with NAND memory too. I don't see this taking off.<BR><BR>Unless they manage to make it rewritable and as reliable as magnetic platters or NAND.<BR><BR>Currently rewritable disks what? A few hundred rewrites? Compared to a few million?
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Its great to be able to stream the video live, but what about those who might live in areas without the bandwidth for it?<BR><BR>Long term archives for large storage (I don't want to think about how many DVDs I burn at work for servers or call recordings)<BR><BR>Next gen console games/PC games/Windows 10 penultimate super deluxe edition (now with Star Wars!) for in store distribution.<BR><BR>Being able to store most of your/your entire music collection and being able to play it in the car (at 1 MB/minute that would give you about a year of continuous music!)<BR><BR>I'm sure, eventually, we'll have common use for 500 GB on a disk. Just...not in 2 years useful.
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While I do agree that it might have more applications than the article suggests, I see it more likely that this kind of storage medium would become like the Zip disk. Great for a bit, but then something comes along right on its heels that makes short work of it.<BR><BR>Blu-Ray is catching on at a slow enough pace in a down market. And while admittedly, it's not typically touted as a storage medium, I could see Blu-Ray making it to market as storage faster than this kind of disc.<BR><BR>I think the only thing that might save this is stability. If it could be harder to harm this than a regular DVD, and longer-lasting, then it's backup capabilities would be drastically improved. And as things move to a more virtual realm, and current optical disks (even Blu-Rays) being unsuited for really massive backups, we're running short on options. Besides buying dedicated backup hard drives, which average users don't want to do.
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I didn't quite read the article as saying "we don't need a bigger storage format". I think what the author's trying to say is that by the time this format is released, we will have advanced other methods of accessing large amounts of data in a more interactive and real-time fashion. Looking back at a brief history of storage media, the theme seems to be that if capacity expands, people will find something to fill it with. It's just that I doubt this optical format will offer the seek times and latencies that people will need to use it every day. As for using it as a backup, as the article already said, magnetic tape is still a pretty cheap way to go.<BR> As for increasing our bandwidth to the point where we can download 720p online, I sadly doubt that cable companies in the US will provide that kind of bandwidth to consumers without a serious fight and restrictive download caps, as the recent TWC fiasco shows. While Fios might be able to push new limits in terms of bandwidth, it's not widely enough available yet, and cable companies are trying their best to legislate it out of competition in their monopolized markets.
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Believe me there are uses for this. Backups is one of them and I wouldn't be surprised to see governments being some of the first customers for this technology. The less space redundant backups take the better.<BR><BR><I>This comment was edited by ajmas on April 28, 2009 19:09</I>
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Blu-Ray is the last mass-market <I>distribution</I> optical format. I highly doubt you'll ever see this GE disc as a distribution format, because how do you do mass printing of the discs? Blu-Ray's eventual ubiquity due to its distribution status will see it eventually replace vanilla DVD everywhere, but I don't doubt the GE format will find a home in niches that require high density removable storage.
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">who is going to use them? </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>The PS4 silly!<BR><BR>What with it's 5D graphics, you will need all those extra GBs!
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While i won't argue against magnetic tapes as a primary backup source in work environments, I could see using this at my home for personal backups, or for transporting large data sets when the network is down or the pipe is too small to reasonably transfer the files. Though, first, GE will have to get it into a form for commercial use and prices ($99 anyone). THAT may take longer than it takes just to get the product developed for beginning deployment.<BR><BR>of course, I'll probably have to get on the blu-ray bandwagon before i even touch these.
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">If anyone can make the case for a 500GB optical disc in 2011, I'd love to hear it. </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>for distributing content like movies, games, software etc.? Doubt that there is a big market. 1080p movies with 7.1 sound should be it for the next I don't know 50 years (unless we have some holographic movies coming up) I may not have read the damn article but how difficult it is to make a burner for this thing? Could be a godsend to backup ever increasing hard-discs or movie/music collections.
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The "libraries of congress" unit sucks because it's not a fixed value - I suppose that library grows its book collection with time, right? And athough physical books are expensive and take space so growth rate is limited for an already-big library, now in the digital age I suppose the LoC must be growing in exponential rate for the last several years.
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4K Movie files. There are plenty of uses. Especially if people start upgrading both their home video equipment to 1080p for HD home movies. Isn't there an old axiom, Junk expands to fill the space provided. HD Weddings. <BR> <BR>And about streaming.<BR>500 gigs on my streaming data plan would cost me $810 on top of my internet access fee. <BR>"The future will not be streamed" due to a bandwidth cap.
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How many times have I read articles about a great new holographic storage breakthrough? 3, 4, 5 times? How many holographic products are on the market? 0. I'll believe this when I see it. Until then, holographic = vapourware.<BR><BR>- AndrewZ
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I haven't been keeping up with the development of this technology, but I recall some of the original novelty of it (well over 5 years ago) was that since it "broke the 2D barrier", the media itself could leave the planar concept behind - that, for example, a 1"x1"x1" cube could be used rather than spinning a disc at thousands of RPM. Systems where the precious data is on media that is moving (be it tape or spinning disc) seem to me inherently more fragile than one in which a beams of light just change their focal point on a stationary object.
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Seriously, what would we put on it? </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>porn.
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Did you just copy your "who would ever need that much space?" article from Blu-Ray, DVD, and CD writers? Bad writer! Bad!
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Your argument is stupid. I'm sure industry and users could always find something to do with more space. What you should be arguing is why would anyone use this, "GE" breakthrough when Blu-Ray is already widely accepted, and other companies, such as Pioneer, have already made similar size barrier breakthroughs with the existing technology.<BR><BR>http://meincmagazine.com/hardwar...layer-500gb-disc.ars<BR><BR>Do you guys even read your own articles???
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What??? You've never watched any of the next generation Star Trek series with the holodecks? We already have holoprojectors/display systems of limited display capacity, and I suspect a bit of their limitations also has to do with a combination of bit-rate and storage capacity as well, in terms of something that's easily reproduced (be very curious to hear the performance characteristics of this holotech). Holographic recording of holographic material is a natural: another one, which may not be directly done with a spinning disc, perhaps, is the data inside a neural network for long-term storage. If you had a fast enough throughput with FPLGA with inputs from this sort of storage medium, you could have constantly updated processing configurations also utilizing the relevant data. After all, isn't a brain sort of a holographic storage medium itself?
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People will find a use for the space. The important question is how much is a disc going to cost.
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Endlessly spinning optical media days are ending. Why waste the power if you can plug in a solid state module (assuming the module costs less and offers similar or greater storage)?
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">So you're telling me that over the course of my entire life, my brain retains 125MB of data? </div></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>That's demonstrable nonsense. I have all of Vanilla Ice's "To the Extreme" in my worthless brain, and even at a low kbps that would be a sizable portion of my usb-thumdrive-from-years-ago mind. 
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Video and film production needs this type of product. At this point we're shooting more and more tapeless. That means we have to keep TBs of data revolving through the post process every few months. Backing up means backing up, and then backing up the backup. Magnetic tape sucks. Would be nice to have a data storage solution that bridges the gap between today's finished project and permanent archiving.
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http://meincmagazine.com/media/n...nema-and-red-ray.ars<BR><BR>Someone needs to start reading the site that they're writing for.
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Ignus Fast
Ars Centurion
Now a simple scratch or ding can damage GIGABYTES of data at a time, instead of mere MEGABYTES! Awesome!
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The case for a 500GB optical disc in 2011? I need one today! Actually, I need several. As long as they cost less per byte than hard drives.<BR><BR>I have nearly 2TB of data on the various computers at my home that I'm getting ready to consolidate onto one server. I'd kind of like to be able to back that data up, but it would take me 80 single-layer blu-ray disks to do this. That would be very slow, and for what the media alone would cost, I could just buy another 4TB of hard drives!
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