Disc, a German optical data storage supplier, has unveiled a Blu-ray-based mini-archive for small businesses and home offices.
The Blu-safe, which was released on Tuesday at the CeBIT technology fair in Hanover, is being targeted at companies that need to archive emails or files onto raw media for compliance purposes. While Blu-ray-based archiving has been available for some time in larger jukebox-type units that can store the tens of terabytes of data, this is not practical or cost-effective for businesses that require less storage.
Containing up to 15 Blu-ray disks, the Blu-safe has a single drive and a USB2.0 interface. According to Pedro Marcos, the European sales manager for the unit's distributors Incom, the drive can be swapped when Blu-ray technology advances past its current 50GB-per-disk limit — the roadmap for Blu-ray is aiming for 400GB per disk.
Disc claims that the Blu-safe uses 80 percent less power than standard hard disks.
Marcos said that it was to the storage industry's benefit that Blu-ray had won in the largely consumer-market-based format war with HD-DVD, which ended in February when HD-DVD backers Toshiba conceded defeat to Sony, the main company behind Blu-ray.
"HD-DVD was based on DVD technology and was limited to [a maximum eventual capacity of] 100GB," said Marcos. "With Blu-ray they went back to the roots of CD production [making it] more reliable."
Marcos said the Blu-safe's price had not yet been finalised, but would be in the region of €3,000 (£2,300). The unit will probably be sold in the UK through Incom's partner here, Westpoint.
