Users Open Up on Optical

Alternatives to traditional disk-based storage and tape are gaining momentum. From Plasmon's Ultra Density Optical (UDO) disks to holographic technology from the likes of InPhase, a growing number of users are turning their attention to optical storage. As the market slowly emerges, though, some IT managers are concerned about optical cost issues and product roadmaps.

The chief advantage of optical storage over other techniques has been its WORM (write once/read many) capabilities. As an archive technology, optical storage has faster access times than tape and is cheaper than magnetic disk. (See Optical WORMs Into Enterprise.)

In the U.K., government mapping agency Ordnance Survey is using a 19-Tbyte UDO library from Plasmon to archive its data. "The main attraction is the lifespan of the media," explains Dave Lipsey, Ordnance Survey's information systems infrastructure manager, adding that UDO can last for around 50 years.

UDO, like Sony's obsolescent Professional Disc for Data (PDD) format, uses blue laser technology to improve capacity and lower the cost of magneto optical (MO) drives.

Thanks to the sharper focus of the blue laser that reads and writes to the drives, UDO disks can store much more capacity than older optical technology. They hold 30 Gbytes, where PDD disks stored 23.3 Gbytes. MO, which uses a red laser, maxes out at 9.1 Gbytes per disk.There also are significant cost benefits, according to Lipsey. The cost of UDO storage typically works out at around $2,300 per Gbyte, he says, compared to around $4,600, including port and switch costs, for traditional disk.

"It's not as cheap as tape," admits the exec. "[But] tape will not last for 50 years -- we have had tape losses after one year, it's not 100 percent reliable," he says.

With the organization having to find space for multiple 700-Mbyte digital images every day, Lipsey expects some major savings from UDO compared to traditional disk. "If I want to keep saving every digital photo that we take, I could be saving about 400,000 pounds ($764,000) over the next five years."

But the optical market is still not fully formed. Sony, for example, pulled the plug on its PDD format earlier this year, much to the consternation of one user. "It was a little disconcerting when they killed the format," says Henry Boze, vice president of engineering at Lincoln Financial Media, who had been using PDD drives at one of his firm's three TV stations. "We're kind of sitting on the sidelines now, before we make any long-term storage decisions."

Sony, for its part, is pointing users in the direction of its MO drives and its Blu-Ray family of optical disks and media. "Frankly, PDD wasn't selling," says Bob De Moulin, marketing manager for the vendor's optical storage division.Lincoln Financial Media's Boze is unfazed by his PDD experience and feels that optical is still a much stronger alternative to tape. "We don't have the controlled environment area to maintain tape for a long period of time," he says. "You need rooms that have humidity control so that tapes don't stretch and contract." He is open to other forms of optical storage, such as holographic technology.

The TV exec told Byte & Switch that, despite his recent experiences, he is open to other forms of optical storage. "Holographic storage appears to have a lot of potential, technology-wise, in terms of its capacity."

Holographic disk, which is championed by the likes of InPhase and Aprilis, is still some way from widespread commercial availability, although the technology offers around 200 Gbytes per disk.

There are, however, some early adopters. Last week, for example, media giant Turner Broadcasting System described its plans to deploy holographic storage to meet the needs of high definition TV. The company has already completed a pilot with InPhase using holographic disk to store a promo for TNT, citing major security benefits. (See Turner Exec Explains Overhaul.)

Other alternatives are also afoot. Vendor PowerFile is touting DVD-based optical storage archive systems as a fast-access alternative to tape. (See Powerfile Intros Appliance, PowerFile Adds Archiving, and Archiving Gets a Refresh.)Philadelphia-based design firm VT Graphics was a beta tester of PowerFile's A3 archiving product. "The big benefit of DVD over tape is speed," says Terreyl Kirton, VTGraphics' director of technology. "To copy 4 Gbytes from a DVD you're looking at a couple of minutes. For tape, even over Fibre Channel, it could take 40 minutes to an hour."

But for Kirton, the PowerFile product was simply too expensive to justify keeping. "It was out of our price range -- the two A3 units and an archiving array cost around $11,000," he explains.

James Rogers, Senior Editor, Byte and Switch