Sorry about the late start this morning, I had a date with a hard drive crash that was only fixed after shelling out $40 and eating a bowl of stew.
Looks like Sony’s pushing their new ‘Professional Disc for DATA,’ the blue-violet laser optical disc storage that is sort of a high-end companion to the Blu-ray format, although totally incompatible. With a capacity road map scheduled to double every two years with proportional increases in transfer rates, we should see 100GB optical discs written at 36MB/s within the (not proverbial) next five years. The first drives will be Ultra 160 SCSI and USB 2.0 only, and Sony has made it clear they aren’t seeking ECMA or ISO standardization, so if you buy into the technology, there’s no promise that you’ll be able to get the media from anyone but Sony.
This isn’t breaking news, and it’ll be out of range for most consumers, but it’s always interesting to see what pro-level hardware is moving toward. Some of that technology always trickles down.
Update: Ars notes that the drives will cost around $2, 500-3,000, with media coming in around $45 a pop. Use this information to counter rabid Sony fanboys trying to tell you the Playstation 3 will have 100 GIGIBATE DISKZ.
