Sony has long been a key player in digital storage technologies. The company introduced the CD in 1982, which it developed in collaboration with Philips and which revolutionised the way data and music are stored and accessed. In 1995, Sony launched the digital versatile disc (DVD), a joint effort with Philips, Toshiba and Panasonic. This was followed by the Blu-ray disc in 2006, which offered even greater storage capacity, suitable for high-definition video and data.
In 2014, the company, in partnership with Panasonic, introduced a new optical storage format for professionals, the Archival Disc, which could store an impressive 300 GB of data.
However, Sony's older optical solutions have been on the way for some time now and the company has said it plans to phase out its production of recordable discs, which includes Blu-ray, after previously announcing plans to cut a significant number of jobs at its optical media plant in northeastern Japan.
The alternatives intensify
“Growth in the cold storage market has not met our expectations and the performance of the storage media business as a whole remains negative,” a Sony Group spokesperson said. “We have determined that it is necessary to review the business structure to improve profitability.”
Another casualty of this move will be Sony’s optical disc archival cartridges. Announced in 2020, the third generation of the product has a capacity of 5.5TB thanks to a double-sided disc with three layers per side for write-once recording. This latest incarnation (and last, by the way) offers a much larger capacity than the second generation, launched in 2016 (3.3TB), and the initial release, introduced in 2013, which came in various capacities up to 1.5TB.
Sony's decision will primarily affect consumers, as the company says it will continue to sell B2B products from existing supplies. It has produced enough to meet demand for quite some time, but if you rely on optical storage, you may want to stock up now.
Several technology companies are working on alternative forms of storage that could fill the gap left by the decline of optical technology. These include ceramics, silica (quartz glass) and DNA-based storage.
