GE Begins Sampling 500GB Optical Discs

Think optical media is dead? Given that we spend so much of our lives online, and are able to stream all sorts of content, from movies to games to music and beyond, it’s not hard to feel that way. While there are some straggler formats, such as Blu-ray, the general consensus seems to be that optical media is dead, or is at least on its way out.

GE Global Research hopes to keep optical media alive, however, with the help of its latest format that can store up to 500GB (half a terabyte!) on a disc the size of a standard DVD. Compared to a DVD, the increase in storage density is just over 100x, while compared to a single-layer Blu-ray disc, the increase is 20x. Any way you look at it, 500GB is huge storage for a solution of this form-factor.

To help promote the format and snag some licensees, GE will soon be sampling the discs to certain vendors. Who are these discs designed for? It could be anyone or anything, from a regular consumer to a huge production company to hospitals and beyond. With this sort of GB/volume ratio, there could be huge potential for such a format.

To put things into perspective, the thickness of a single DVD is 1.2mm, while a typical 3.5″ hard drive is ~26.11mm thick. Using roughly the same amount of physical space, whereas a hard drive currently tops out at 3TB, 22 of these 500GB discs would provide a staggering 10.5TB amount of total storage space. Plus, unlike mechanic hard drives, discs are easier to securely store and are less prone to becoming destroyed if dropped.

Of course, all of this excludes pricing, and since these GE discs are not publically available, we’ll have no idea the cost until they actually see the light of day. Currently, Blu-ray discs are not exactly a great value when you’re trying to maximize your spending, but if GE can release such discs for even $10 a pop, they’d be rather compelling.