If we are looking to have a large storage capacity without spending a lot of money, hard drives are the best option. Despite the fact that SSDs have dropped in price to a great extent, the kings of the terabyte per euro invested are still HDDs. However, this could change, because in the US a new optical disc format (such as CDs and DVDs) called ACTIVE is being developed, with 1 TB capacity and with the peculiarity of being cheaper than hard drives. A few years ago, when hard drives did not have the capacity they do now, other storage media were used much more. And it is that, 15 years ago, it was normal to find 250 GB HDDs for prices around 100 euros, being considered the best sales for price and storage. And it is that, if you went to capacities greater than 320 GB, the price could easily be doubled or tripled. At this time, back in 2005/2006, it was very common to use CDs and, above all, DVDs, with their 4.7 GB or double-layer ones, which reached 8.5 GB. Folio Photonics Announces New Optical Disc Format The days of buying DVD disc tubs for relatively cheap bulk storage may return. That’s because a company called Folio Photonics, based in Ohio, promises to revolutionize the optical disc market. And it is that, in this sector, not much progress has been made, since the most advanced disc format is Blu-ray or BD, which was released in 2005, but did not begin to be widely used until the arrival of the PlayStation 3 and its reader. These offer up to 50 GB in its double layer version and a roll of 10 Blu-Ray of this capacity costs around 50 euros. There is also a version with 100 GB of capacity, the Blu-Ray BDXL format, but since 5 units of this cost 75 euros, it is more expensive. Thus, current optical disc formats cannot compete on price compared to other storage media such as hard drives, which are cheaper. But Folio Photonics has announced its new format, called ACTIVE, with the aim of revolutionizing the sector. And it is that, these new discs have a capacity of 1 TB and will be sold in boxes of 10 discs. In addition to having much more capacity than Blu-Ray, they will be considerably cheaper. In fact, ACTIVE drives will cost $5/TB and they want to hit $1/TB. ACTIVE drives will be very cheap and consume less than an HDD It seemed that ODD technology was going to be history, but the CEO of Folio Photonics, Steven Santamaria, promises that ACTIVE drives will revive the market. These offer storage that outperforms the competition and also with better price, sustainability and cybersecurity. And it is that, these will not only be about 5 times cheaper than the HDD, but also consume much less. In fact, they ensure that they will consume 80% less energy than conventional hard drives and will use state-of-the-art technology and materials. While current discs use three layers at most, ACTIVE discs will have up to 16 layers of film per side. All this, while using sustainable materials in its creation, ensuring a useful life of 100 years and resistance to heat, cold and humidity. Regarding cybersecurity, the company ensures that its ACTIVE drives will resist EMP attacks, which do affect hard drives. However, the company has not given any details about its reading and writing speed, so we do not know its performance. Regarding its launch date, ACTIVE disks are expected to hit the market in 2024, in a format of 10 disks with a total of 10 TB. We will wait to see if they really innovate in the optical disc market and become an extremely cheap storage medium.