Archival Disc

Archival Disc
Media type Optical disc
Capacity 300 GB, 500 GB, 1 TB[1]
Read mechanism 405 nm diode laser, Numerical Aperture NA=0.85[1]
Developed by Sony Corporation, Panasonic Corporation
Dimensions 120 mm (4.7 in) diameter
1.2 mm thickness[2]
Usage Long-term data storage

Archival Disc (AD) is the name of a trademark owned by Sony Corporation and Panasonic Corporation describing an optical disc storage medium designed for long-term digital storage. First announced on 10 March 2014 and planned to be introduced in the second quarter of 2015, the discs are intended to be able to withstand changes in temperature and humidity, in addition to dust and water, ensuring that the disc is readable for at least 50 years.[2] The agreement between Sony and Panasonic to jointly develop the upcoming generation optical media standard was first announced on 29 July 2013.[3]

Specifications

The discs are designed to hold 300 gigabytes of data in their first release, then a second version of the discs will hold up to 500 gigabytes, and eventually a third version of the discs will be able to store up to one terabyte of data, based on the roadmap plans of both companies.[1][2][4][5]

The Archival Disc standard jointly developed by Sony and Panasonic will utilise signal processing technologies such as narrow track pitch crosstalk cancellation, high linear density inter-symbol interference cancellation and multi-level recording. The disc structure will feature dual sides, with three layers on each side, and a land and groove format. The track pitch is 0.225 μm, the data bit length is 79.5 nm, and the standard will utilise the method of Reed-Solomon Code error detection.

Roadmap

Archival Disc Roadmap

Sony has released a roadmap plan[6] to increase Archival Disc capacity from 300GB to 1TB per disc. The 300GB disc was scheduled for release in the summer of 2015, release timescales of the larger discs are currently unknown.

Use

Sony expects the new standard to see usage in the film industry (such as storage of 4K resolution audiovisual data[7]), archival services, and cloud data centres handling big data.[1] The disc format is not intended as a consumer storage medium as of 2014, but is intended by the two companies as a solution for professional-level data archival.[2] In order to reach a larger capacity whilst ensuring higher playback signal quality, the standard will employ crosstalk cancellation and partial response maximum likelihood (PRML) signal processing.[1] Both companies will market the optical format under their respective brands.

Sony will be using Archival Disc in within the Optical Disc Archive professional archival product range. Sony's aim is to create at least a 6TB storage medium.

An emerging use case for Archival Disc has been projected for cold data storage within the datacenter. [8]

See also

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Tuesday, April 26, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.