1TB optical discs are coming, but you'll have to wait until 2015

I still remember the days of optical discs, where they played an important role in my life. There was a time I burnt myself "system discs", that I had drivers, pictures, updates (for software/games), and much more on it. In the days of dial-up, and in the days when tech didn't change so quickly with updates being freely available over the Internet.

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These days, I don't use optical discs - period. Nearly everything I use is online, or on my QNAP NAS - but that hasn't stopped the world of optical discs from moving forward. We're now staring down the barrel of 1TB of data on a single optical disc. Fujifilm have developed a new recording method which is reportedly capable of delivering up to 1TB per disc.

This is done through 25GB per layer, which is the same amount of data a single-layer Blu-ray disc holds. But Fujifilm's new tech can cram in up to 20 layer of 25GB, amounting to 1TB in total.

This new method reportedly combines a "two-photon absorption material" with "heat-mode recording" - as much as it sounds like Superman's heat vision, it's not - but it's close. The recording process involves creating "irreversible" changes to the media, which would most likely mean we won't see rewritable media in 1TB, unfortunately.

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Better yet, the tech is capable of scaling up to 15TB per disc - just in time for 4K TVs to have a bigger impact on the market. Oh yeah.