Pioneer And Memory-Tech Develop Next-Generation 512GB Optical Disc
Pioneer Corporation and Memory-Tech Corporation have jointly developed a high-capacity optical disc for data archiving with a capacity of 256 GB on a single side. With the use of double-sided disc technologies, capacity can be expanded up to 512 GB.
Recently there has been growing interest in digital archiving where information such as source materials and official documents held at libraries and art galleries are digitized and stored long-term, and the total volume of stored digital data is expected to rapidly increase in the coming years. As well as offering lower maintenance costs compared with other technologies, the use of optical discs to record and save information is recognized for its high reliability, such as its excellent recording recall factor when exposed to disasters such as flooding, and further advances in capacity are required.
The high-capacity optical disc for data archiving developed by Pioneer and Memory-Tech employs a guide layer-separated multi-layer disc structure which separates the recording layers and guide layers, and by stacking eight recording layers on a single side of an optical disc, achieves the high capacity of 256 GB. With the use of double-sided disc technologies, recording capacity of up to 512 GB on a single disc can be ensured. Moreover, the discs feature excellent compatibility with existing formats. For instance, the developed optical discs recorded using a compliant recording device can be played back on Blu-ray Disc™ compliant drives (Some pickup and firmware modifications required).