Presently the vast majority of computer users still use DVD as the dominant optical media format, or to be more specific, DVD-5. It would be nice if we all used DVD-18, a double-sided, dual-layered disc that holds 17.08GB, but the 4.7GB single-layer 5 format is what’s widely available and can be purchased just about anywhere.
Recently, TDK unveiled the 1TB optical disc. Don’t get excited because it’s bleeding-edge brand new and as such there are no optical drives currently available for it that support the format (it’s assumed talks with manufacturers are in progress). The ability to have optical media that has 20 times the capacity of an average Blu-ray disc sounds really great, but..
..would you go for it?
You can weigh in your opinion in a comment below, but here’s my thoughts on it.
My personal answer is no, I wouldn’t go for 1TB optical discs. It’s no secret that I can’t stand optical media due to its fragile nature. They scratch easily, a drive can decide to wreck a disc whenever it decides to go bad, and even if you store a disc perfectly in a proper environment it still finds a way of not working when you want it to.
The only good thing about optical media is that it’s cheap. In fact, it’s still the cheapest storage you can buy. A 100-pack of DVD+R or DVD-R discs currently goes for about $21. That’s 470GB worth of storage at 21 cents per 4.7GB disc, translating to roughly 4.5 cents per gigabyte. Like I said, cheap. No other storage media comes close to the value you get from DVD-5 discs.
Let’s assume for the moment the 1TB optical disc becomes a real thing. That means you’ll have to go out and buy a new optical drive to support it. Both the drive itself and the 1TB discs will cost a ridiculous amount of money.
Cost aside, while it’s true that a single 1TB disc is the equivalent of just over 212 DVD-5 discs, would you really put that much trust and faith storing 1TB of data on optical media?
I wouldn’t.
Would you?
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I would not trust a single one terabyte copy stored in one place. I would trust multiple copies stored in multiple places. This is how any critical backup should be done.
I’m happy that this is the bleeding edge, as was DVD, and CD at one time. It will take a long time, but this kind of tech will replace Blu-Ray one day. As HD gets better, 3D is coming around, how much data will we need to cram into one disc to get our movies at their best?
My first portable CD player was $200, it was the really nice one with a 5 second buffer. Now you can get a generic for $10 at Walgreens. I wouldn’t cough up a ton of money for this, but I’ll be watching it when the price drops, just like I’m currently looking at BD drives for a HTPC.
The functionality of re-writable discs has always annoyed me so I never used them much. But should we assume re-writability is on the menu for these new discs? If not, count me out, and probably count me out anyway for all the reasons mentioned in the article.
Single-write media has always struck me as a step backward.
I think this depends on the speed at which it can be written. I don’t see any need for it now as 1 TB disk drives are fairly cheap for a back up and it can be written to quickly. I think optical media is becoming increasing irrelevant.
definitely yeah! we should all need a back up. It’s for us also=)
I think optical media should be dropped from market altogether – any PC (or Mac, *cough* yucky taste) these days support USB drives. as cheap as they are, software vendors could easily manufacture or purchase cheap plastic 1GB write-locked thumb drives to distribute their software on. backups are best done on media that doesn’t degrade, so CD/DVDs are out of the question anyways.
Also, the speed at which the drive would have to spin to write 1TB in under an hour is unheard of and multiple times over what is available now. It would take major re-engineering of drive mechanics including laser focus, intensity, rotation stabilization, etc.. My prediction is that this will never actually come to pass on the public market, and if it does it will never take hold with the consumers.