Resources - Archiving & Storage Whitepapers - Blu-ray Disc Technology

Optical Blu-ray Disc (BD) Technology offers random access to any file in the digital archive. It is a low cost, standardized open solution. Additionally, optical media has industry standard formats; ISO 9660 and UDF (Universal Disk Format) which are supported on every major operating system today including Windows, Linux, UNIX and MAC OSX natively without any additional client software.

Optical media is also less vulnerable than magnetic media as it is less susceptible to environmental conditions.  It provides a true WORM (Write Once Read Many) recording medium which is essential considering today’s requirements for multi-year data retention periods and growing regulatory compliancy requirements for unalterable, non-erasable storage capabilities. Optical technology meets these requirements as part of its standard features. 

Tape has been used traditionally for back-up and is now also being promoted as archiving technology. Tape however does not provide random access capabilities. It is also more vulnerable for damage and wear making it usually not the optimum choice. As tape formats are proprietary and subject to change, compatibility is a key issue. Tape standards change approximately every 5 years, reducing the long term efficiency of tape as archival technology.

RAID systems (hard disks) require frequent maintenance.  Moreover, power consumption and the lack of removability of the media make RAID technology less suited as a single archiving technology. 

However, as part of a hybrid storage solution (RAID & Tape or RAID & BD), it offers essential  benefits to the archiving process, such as random and fast access to the archived data through low-cost, standardized technology.

 

Key Benefits Blu-ray Technology:

Longevity
• 50+ years media lifetime guarantees long-term data retention.
• Promising technology roadmap: 100-200GB/disc.

Compliance
• BD-R is write-once, offering highly reliable and tamper-proof archives.

Standard
• Standardized technology (UDF) offers long-term data read.
• Widespread acceptance by users.
• Multi-platform support.

Green
• Less CO2 emission requiring minimal power and air-conditioning consumption.

Low TCO
• Use of standard technology simplifies implementation and administration.
• Proven compatibility (CD, DVD, BD, +) reduces the need for costly and inefficient data migrations.
• Economically priced media.

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