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Blue rays to fight storage blues!

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CIOL Bureau
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Sony Corp, has come out with a ultradense optical storage products based on blue-laser technology, which it developed through a consortium it led. This technology can write 25GB of data on a DVD-size disc (a standard DVD holds 4.7GB).

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Two industry groups are promoting incompatible formats: Blu-ray Disc Founders, a consortium of Japanese companies led by Sony and recently joined by Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc.; and the DVD Forum, led by Toshiba Corp. and NEC Corp.

Standard optical technologies such as CD, DVD and magneto-optical (MO) drives write data using red lasers. These lasers operate at shorter optical wavelengths and hence can write more data in the same space and write and read data faster than devices that use red lasers. Now, with the development of this new technology, makers of storage systems and recording media are now able bring more efficient optical storage discs.

While the buzz about blue-laser technology is focussed around consumer electronics market, blue-laser discs can also succeed DVD and used as a back up for desktop PCs or archiving audio, video and image files.

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According to the consortium specification, while the disc is the same size as a DVD, the recording layer sits on the surface of a 1.1mm substrate and is protected by a special coating. A single-layer BD-ROM, as the Blu-ray Disc Founders call it, will hold 25GB-67% more than an HD-DVD-and a dual-layer disc will hold 50GB.

According to media reports which quoted Mike Fidler, a senior vice president at Sony as saying that the company will have Blu-ray media in both write-once and rewritable formats by year's end and will ship a Blu-ray disc player by the end of 2005. Blu-ray in PCs will follow roughly the same schedule. HP and Dell look at this from both the entertainment and data-storage perspectives," he said..

Pricing model

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According to various analysts, the price of Blu-ray and HD-DVD drives and media will eventually come down to the levels of today's red-laser devices and media, but users will see a much lower net cost per gigabyte of data stored. And that cost will continue to fall as storage densities increase. Currently, Sony Blu-ray recorders, which are available only in Japan, are selling at $2,700 and discs are $23 each.

It's not clear which format will ultimately prevail. HD-DVD has lower capacity but is less costly to manufacture because discs can be made using existing DVD production equipment. Blu-ray proponents counter that although their manufacturing processes must be changed more radically, it will be cheaper in the long run to make a Blu-ray disc than an HD-DVD.

Right now, PC users may want to place their bets with Blu-ray, since it's the only blue-laser format to be endorsed by major PC makers so far.

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Blue laser technology is expected to give optical storage "a resurgence.” It won't compete with disk-based storage for primary capacity except in a few industries and for specific requirements like removability and WORM (write once, read many), predicts Gerr. “We can expect more blue laser-based products from IBM, HP, Sony, and others, and also from those targeting the healthcare market, such as GE Medical or Siemens,” he added.

For storage administrators who care more about data archiving than about downloading high-definition television footage, other blue-laser technologies are emerging. For years, companies in industries such as financial services, health care, insurance and publishing have chosen optical media for archiving because they're extremely reliable and long-lived. And because they can't be erased or rewritten, optical media meet the most stringent government requirements for records retention.

When it comes to enterprise storage, the amount of data stored on optical media will remain a tiny fraction of the amount stored on magnetic media for the foreseeable future, says Peter Gere, an analyst at Enterprise Storage Group Inc. in Milford, Mass. But he predicts that the cost advantage of blue-laser media will feed a surge in popularity for write-once, read-many optical storage in the wake of new regulations and recent litigation related to data archiving.

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"IT managers are hypersensitive to the risks associated with poor records management, and optical storage is the poster child for long-term data retention," Gere says. "It may not be the fastest or the most cost-effective, but it is the best media right now in terms of ensuring long-term data retention." Plasmon's blue-laser Ultra Density Optical (UDO) technology "has really given optical a new life," he adds.

Optical storage is likely to remain somewhat more costly than other technologies, Gere says. "But you are paying not only for longevity, but also for something magnetic media can't provide, which is immutability," he adds.

Compiled from various sources

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