Panasonic Develops 300GB "freeze-ray" Optical Discs for Facebook Data Centers

Panasonic unveiled its freeze-ray, an Optical Disc-Based Data Archive System, developed in collaboration with Facebook, which is deploying the first-generation 100 GB Blu-ray Disc-based archive system into its data centers now.  Facebook expects deployment of the second-generation 300GB Archival Disc-based archive system later in 2016.

The technology is aimed at infrequently or never accessed data stored for the long term -- in the world’s data centers.

Panasonic said its freeze-ray data archiving solution provides optimal cold storage for protecting data integrity and reducing costs.  Optical discs provide longevity, immutability, backward compatibility, low power consumption and tolerance to environmental changes.

Panasonic’s main contribution to the effort was its high-density optical technology, key devices (optical discs, drives and related robotics) and library software to control the system easily in the data center. Facebook collaborated by providing its unmatched expertise in designing, deploying, managing and servicing storage systems in data centers. In addition, Facebook provided extensive technical and real-world data center feedback at every stage of the development. Both companies have been working on two generations of the freeze-ray solution.

“As Facebook continues to grow, we needed to address some of our fundamental engineering challenges with an efficient, low-cost and sustainable solution that matches our speed and exabyte-scale of data,” said Jason Taylor, PhD, VP of Infrastructure, Facebook. "We're seeing exponential growth in the number of photos and videos being uploaded to Facebook, and the work we’ve done with Panasonic is exciting because optical storage introduces a medium that is immutable, which helps ensure that people have long-term access to their digital memories.”

http://www.panasonic.com