At the annual Japanese trade show CEATEC, the Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies, TDK Corporation unveiled an optical disc that has a terabyte of storage, making electronic pack rats squeal with joy and Blu-ray discs everywhere feel a little inadequate.
For comparison, a standard Blu-ray disc has one layer with 25 gigabytes of storage, while a dual-layered disc ups the storage to 50 gigabytes: TDK’s new optical disc sports 16 layers totaling a terabyte of storage, and each layer apparently reads as quickly as a Blu-ray layer.
Don’t start downloading all 47 years of Doctor Who just yet, as the disc’s layers are currently too thick to be effectively read by Blu-ray players. Once that gets sorted out, TDK has stated that “Its commercialization depends on disc manufacturers,” though it’d be difficult to imagine no one would pick up and mass produce a disc with a terabyte of storage.
