1000GB DVDs on the Way?

[Jonathon Watkins]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3696306.stm' target='_blank'>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3696306.stm</a><br /><br /></div>"<i>DVDs are one of the most successful consumer products in history. Most DVDs have two layers and can hold up to 8.5GB. Work is already well advanced on the next generation. One technology, HD-DVD (High Definition DVD), can hold up to 30GB, while a rival format called Blu-ray offers 50GB of storage. The technique developed by the Imperial College team could offer much more on a disc. The researchers believe their technique could be used to create a disc with four layers, each with 250GBs - the equivalent of 118 hours of video per layer. A four-layer DVD could hold one terabyte (1,000GBs) of data, enough for 472 hours of film, or every episode of The Simpsons ever made. "</i><br /><br />So, continuing on the storage theme of yesterday, we now have the prospect of outlandishly large capacity DVDs. My cup runeth over! :wink: The BBC article points out that this new technology also enables mobile devices to be able to use small diameter disks. Ie. you could have optical media on your PPC. Teeeeeny, tiny DVDs, that can still hold multiple gigabytes. Lots of posibilities there. Still, the Imperial College team think that it could take five years to perfect the technique, with a commercial version possibly available by 2010. Lots of time to start saving for one. :wink:

[keirmeister]

Sounds fabulous! The question is, just how long would it take to actually burn a 1000GB DVD? Somehow I think 2.5x speed wouldn't cut it. :wink:

[Jonathon Watkins]

Sounds fabulous! The question is, just how long would it take to actually burn a 1000GB DVD? Somehow I think 2.5x speed wouldn't cut it. :wink:

Welcome Keirmeister. Good to see you. :)

I would hope that by 2010 we would have considerably faster burn rates, but fair point. Burning a disk always seems to take X minutes. As the burn speed increases, the capacity increases. Oh well, backups will still take the same time as those disks will be growing at the same rate. Running to stand still eh! :lol:

[dean_shan]

BTW here's the link (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3696306.stm) to the BBC article.

[cmariotti]

Although I can appreciate a 1 TB Disc the size of a CD-ROM... Unfortunately, I must start to protest this escape from what is really needed.

We can't continue to have storage based on a rotating disks with lasers... and then just add layers. Even worse, something that looks and is the size of a CD-ROM.

I just had a person tell me they bought $100 worth of blank DVDs... And they don't work on her computer (she bough -R instead of +R). Then, wonders why a DVD she did manage to write, doesn't work on her CD-ROM. Now we're into dual-layers, double sided... Shame on Sony/Philips for creating this mess. They're going to do it again and again...

It's getting stupid the number of capacities and formats that are the same form factor of CD-ROM. It's time for a new form factor. It is way over-due.

It has to be multi-dimensional, smaller and self contained. DVDs were created so that suppoorting CD products could handle the new format (CD Roms, CD Cases, Motors, tracks, etc...).

We need a little cube/sphere that maximizes real-estate... ala CF... but cheap and fast. It is way past-due... I hope that a bigger/faster CF or similar becomes the defactor storage standard so that we can say "screw you Philips/Sony for screwing us".

[Darius Wey]

I would hope that by 2010 we would have considerably faster burn rates, but fair point.

That would be nice to see as well. Although, bear in mind that with these disc-burning drives, they have a theoretical maximum speed limit. While the 52x mark has been broken for CD-RW, you will usually only see the highest speed CD-RW drive out there as being 52x, as the theoretical maximum that can be attained does not provide that much more benefit.

Same with DVD+/-RW drives...16x (so I've heard) is close to the maximum. We may see 24x pop around the corner, but I'm sure DVD drives are close to their maximum speed limit...(for consumers anyway).

[theone3]

We ned a little cube/sphere that maximizes real-estate... ala CF... but cheap and fast. It is way past-due... I hope that a bigger/faster CF or similar becomes the defactor storage standard so that we can say "screw you Philips/Sony for screwing us".Uh.. Cube? Sphere? That might be a little hard to implement. But why do we need to rotate the disc? If we can get this kind of density, why cant a reader read a square disc in a sort of 'matrix' or cartesian plane kinda thing.

I wonder how this will change the DVD industry. If burners get fast enough, why couldn't we go into a Video EZY, buy the latest DVD and 'burn' it to our Action compilation.

'Course, we geeks will all have FTTH and HTPCs by then, so it's kinda irrelevant. ;)

[KayMan2k]

Bah! A company is using Holographic nanotechnology to store 10 TERABYTES onto a single 3.5 DISK. They expect to grow the storage to 100 TERABYTES and ultimatly 10 PETABYTES!!!!

http://www.colossalstorage.net/colossal5.htm

[Jonathon Watkins]

BTW here's the link (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3696306.stm) to the BBC article.

:oops: Thank Dean_shan. I missed that one.....

[OSUKid7]

"DVDs are one of the most successful consumer products in history. Most DVDs have two layers and can hold up to 8.5Gb."Dual-layer DVDs hold 8.5GB, not 8.5Gb.

"One technology, HD-DVD (High Definition DVD), can hold up to 30Gb, while a rival format called Blu-ray offers 50Gb of storage."Once again, I'm fairly sure that's 30GB and 50GB, not GigaBits.

"The researchers believe their technique could be used to create a disc with four layers, each with 250GBs - the equivalent of 118 hours of video per layer."Got it right there...odd. :?

"A four-layer DVD could hold one terabyte (1,000Gbs) of data, enough for 472 hours of film, or every episode of The Simpsons ever made."1 terabyte != 1,000 gigabits.

This may not seem like a big mistake, but a byte is 8 bits, meaning 1000GB is 8 times larger than 1000Gb. That's a big difference. I would have hoped someone at the BBC would have caught that. Maybe by 2010 they can figure out if it's Gb or GB. ;) :lol:



edit: Well, this'll teach me to read the source again before taking the time to rant. :bangin: The source page was updated, and it looks like the BBC has corrected these mistakes.

[Jonathon Watkins]

edit: Well, this'll teach me to read the source again before taking the time to rant. :bangin: The source page was updated, and it looks like the BBC has corrected these mistakes.

Fair point. I've updated the post. You guys sure do keep the BBC (and us) honest.

[OSUKid7]

I've updated the post. You guys sure do keep the BBC (and us) honest.Great. :) Only other thing, is it's 1000GB in the title, not Gb.