I just returned from Fry's and saw the new Pioneer Blu-Ray burner on sale on their store shelf. It's around $800. Blank BDs are also available from $20. This amounts to almost $1 per Gigabyte.

It's pretty amazing to have the capability to back up data at 25 GB per disc. You can basically back up your hard drive with these BDs. But, the Blu Ray burner itself is pretty expensive. Maybe during this holiday season the price will be lower as more companies produce the drive and compete on price.

Basically I see the BluRay 25 Gigs disk as a hard drive platter. Having worked in the data storage industry for many years, this approaches the capacity of hard drives. But the transfer speed is pretty slow, just 2x for Blu-Ray. Therefore, although capacity can match magnetic media, the transfer speed is still slow.

Right now, Blu-Ray is the newest technology optical media. I have also seen some online coverage of Flash HDDs, or SSDs (Solid-State-Disks) At his is also pretty expensive when compared to the regular hard drive or optical media.

"In July, Sony Corp. launched the Vaio UX90 micronotebook, which includes a 16GB SSD, for sale in Japan and China. Compared with units with hard drives, SSD-outfitted notebooks boot up and run faster, are quieter and use less power. Samsung claims that its units will boot up 50% faster. But they aren't cheap. Sony's UX90, which sells for $1,805, costs $343 more than a unit with a 30GB hard disk. The Samsung notebooks start at $2,430. At current prices, 32GB of flash might add $700 or more to the price of a notebook, says IDC analyst John Rydning. "

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