blu-ray logo.pngThe Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) today announced the finalization of a new double-sided disc specification (BD-DSD), a commercial specification that enables storage of 200GB of data on a double-sided Blu-ray Disc for professional usage. The BD-DSD discs are designed to work in large configurations built to store petabytes of data, and also provide a cost effective, highly reliable alternative to traditional HDD and tape storage systems for data center operators. Optical discs have inherent reliability advantages over other media as the discs do not make physical contact with a read/write head, like tape, and do not continually spin like HDDs.

“With the explosion of social media services, the move toward cloud computing services, and the overall ‘digitization’ of our social and business lives, institutional data storage requirements today are simply staggering,” said Kei Yamashita, chairman of the BDA’s DSD Task Force. “The new BD-DSD specification can provide an extremely cost-effective and dependable way to meet this need while providing manufacturers of BD-DSD products the ability to help reduce a data center’s carbon footprint.”

According to estimates based on a current single-sided disc, operating costs for 100 terabyte class storage system could be significantly reduced by using BD-DSD as opposed to other media options. This estimation considers cost of media as well as data migration, power consumption, IT, hardware and software costs. The reductions in power consumption, both for operation and cooling, also result in a significant reduction in CO2 emissions when compared to HDD and tape centric data centers.

“From its inception, Blu-ray Disc™ has been an extremely flexible and extendable format,” said Victor Matsuda, chairman, BDA Global Promotions Committee.“ The same flexibility and capacity that have helped Blu-ray Disc™ set the standard for in-home entertainment make it well suited to help the growing needs in commercial data storage.”

With each BD-DSD disc holding 200GB of data (100GB/side), the discs are likely to be contained in cartridges of several discs or hundreds discs, enabling data centers to use multiple cartridges to create storage systems capable of handling petabytes of data in a single array. Cartridges could be accessed via robotic arm and carried to a laser read/write head for data access. Once mounted, disc access times are likely to be comparable to typical HDD access times and considerably faster than typical time to access data within a tape.

The specification and licensing terms will be available on August 18, 2014. Licensing inquiries can be directed to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or to License Office, 4444 Riverside Drive, Suite 103, Burbank, CA 91505.