Optical Disk Storage Roadmap

Abstract

Optical disk technology is the only optical data storage technology with a notable market. After more than a decade of persistent struggle, optical disk storage has established itself as a significant, albeit not dominant, segment of the computer data storage industry. Worldwide revenue for optical disk drives in 1998 was $6.1 billion, which compares with $34.2 billion for magnetic hard disk drives [1]. The success and growth of optical storage in the last few years has been strongly fueled by the emergence and acceptance of the CD-ROM device and media as the de facto standard for software distribution on mass market desktop computer systems. CD-ROM drives accounted for 92% of the optical drive units shipped in 1998, although this represented only 75% of the overall optical drive revenue [1]. For software distribution, the attractive features of CD-ROM are that it is a removable storage medium with very low cost and very high capacity, which can be easily mass-replicated. The ubiquitous presence of CD-ROM drives in desktop computer systems has in turn provided a foundation for the recent growth of recordable and rewritable devices in the CD form factor. This strong, established base will have an important influence on the future development of optical disk storage.KeywordsOptical DiskPulse Position ModulationOptical Data StorageStorage LayerOptical Disk DriveThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.