Sony announces new blue-laser drive and media
Posted on 07/04/03 19:30 by Johnny                             
Sony announces new blue-laser drive and media
The first set-top Blu-ray recorder, the Sony BDZ-S77, will soon be launched in Japan and Sony has now also announced a blue-laser Ultra-wide 160 SCSI internal 5.25" drive for use in high-end workstations and servers. The media for the drive has a capacity of 23.3 GB with a maximum transfer rate of 9MB/s and will be available in both rewritable and write-once versions. The drive and media will be demonstrated at the Association of Information and Image Management (AIIM) conference which started today in New York.

Several suppliers have already expressed interest in the new drive and media. Looking to the future, Thong said that Sony hopes to bring a second-generation drive and media to the market by 2005 that will feature 50 GB of capacity with a transfer rate of 18 MB/sec. He then expects this to be followed by a third-generation drive and media featuring 100 GB of capacity with a transfer rate of 36 MB/sec. Having pursued open alliances with many suppliers within the industry over the years, Sony will continuously strive to maintain its leadership position in the optical disc business.

The drive and media will be shipped to OEMs this summer. Expected price is 3000 US dollar for the drive and 45 US dollar for the media. You can read the complete press release here.

Source: Sony

Reactions
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By RaWShadow, Mon 7 Apr 2003 20:43
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wow thats a lot of money.
By cico, Mon 7 Apr 2003 21:16
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ciconothing compared to what RIAA asked the poor student clown Stick Out Tongue
By thenapalm, Mon 7 Apr 2003 22:59
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Actually it's cheaper than DVD writeable drives. I remember seeing DVD-RAM first come out and it was $ 16,000 US. I'm betting DVD-+R drives were cheaper.
[edited by thenapalm on 07.04.2003 23:00]
By Crabbyappleton, Tue 8 Apr 2003 01:02
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CrabbyappletonThe important thing is that they are out and available. In time if it is like all other PC devices, the price will drop. This is one heck of an advance in storage. Wow.
By Enojado, Tue 8 Apr 2003 01:15
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Can't wait for a Lite-on or plextor version.
By Seán, Tue 8 Apr 2003 10:52
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SeánI'd wait until the transfer rate improves on the 23.3GB version first. 9MB/s Max is equivalent to 6xDVD max. My DVD-ROM reads DVD-R's at 12x, giving a throughput of 18MB/s. A 20xDVD-ROM (fastest I've seen for sale) has a throughput of 30MB/s. Then again, their 100GB version would be nice. Backup your entire DVD, CD and MP3 collection on on disc. devil

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