Sony and Panasonic present an optical oriented disc storage

Sony and Panasonic have developed an optical disc for companies with a capacity of 300 GB Named Archival Disc, it will have the same dimensions as the current Blu-ray discs will be readable for at least 50 years. The discs have three layers on each side. They are expected on the market in 2015. Capacity expansion is already planned to eventually reach 500 GB and 1 TB Both firms indicated that higher capacity will be achieved through multi-level recording technologies.

Sony and Panasonic want to push optical discs from the suppliers of cloud services and archiving with the explosion of online data. The two companies announced that they will market the discs separately under their brands. Panasonic spokesman said: "Optical discs have many advantages over current discs and tapes, as their ability to store data for a long time while maintaining readability," 

He added that "drives do not require a special storage environment with a constant temperature and humidity levels, with air conditioning." He points to the benefits in terms of energy consumption compared to the use of magnetic tapes (LTO). LTO have a greater capacity, but their life is estimated at 30 years, as promised, for example LTO-5 Ultrium 3 TB of HP. 

Sony and Panasonic state that if the optical disc formats evolve (Blu-ray, BDXL, etc.) compatibility between different generations ensures that old records can be read by systems of enterprise storage. Nevertheless, the two partners do not plan to launch their discs on the consumer market. Panasonic spokesperson says "Development is specifically dedicated to professional archiving,".