Toshiba Samsung Storage Technology Corp. has completed the technical development of its Blu-Ray disc drives for PCs, according to Richard Aguilera, western regional sales manager for optical disc-drive products at Samsung.
The first incarnation of the drives, to be launched in March by Samsung, will burn Blu-Ray, but will only read CDs and DVDs.
The next generation, to be launched between April and August will support burning to all three media.
The technology is, for now, single layer and will support writing upto 25GB of data per BD-ROM - more than five times the storage capacity of a DVD5.
Initally, the company expects the technology to be restricted to replacing tape drives, due to the high cost of the drives. However, as prices begin to fall, PC manufacturers are expected to start building the drives into their products.
For the Standalone fans, nirvana will up for grabs sometime before September, according to Aguilera.
Technology behind the storage
DVDs use red lasers of wavelength 650nm to read and write data, while Blu-Ray(and HD-DVDs) use a shorter wavelength, blue laser at 405nm.
The Blu-Ray beam can hence focus on smaller surfaces than it's Red cousin, enabling it to read information recorded in pits that are only 0.16 microns long - more than twice as small as the pits on a DVD.
The smaller size of pits allows more of them to be squeezed into the same area, thereby increasing the storage capacity of the media.
The first incarnation of the drives, to be launched in March by Samsung, will burn Blu-Ray, but will only read CDs and DVDs.
The next generation, to be launched between April and August will support burning to all three media.
The technology is, for now, single layer and will support writing upto 25GB of data per BD-ROM - more than five times the storage capacity of a DVD5.
Initally, the company expects the technology to be restricted to replacing tape drives, due to the high cost of the drives. However, as prices begin to fall, PC manufacturers are expected to start building the drives into their products.
For the Standalone fans, nirvana will up for grabs sometime before September, according to Aguilera.
Technology behind the storage
DVDs use red lasers of wavelength 650nm to read and write data, while Blu-Ray(and HD-DVDs) use a shorter wavelength, blue laser at 405nm.
The Blu-Ray beam can hence focus on smaller surfaces than it's Red cousin, enabling it to read information recorded in pits that are only 0.16 microns long - more than twice as small as the pits on a DVD.
The smaller size of pits allows more of them to be squeezed into the same area, thereby increasing the storage capacity of the media.