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Storage After 18 years, Sony's Blu-ray media production draws to a close -- shuts its last factory in Feb News By Jowi Morales published 23 January 2025 MiniDiscs for recording, MD data for recording, and MiniDV cassettes will also be abandoned. * * * * * * * Comments (19) When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here's how it works. Optical Discs (Image credit: Shutterstock) Sony has announced it will end Blu-ray Disc media production in February, marking the end of its nearly two-decade run. Unfortunately, it will also mark the end of optical media storage for the company; as Sony said (machine translation), there won't be a successor model to the Blu-ray. This end-of-production announcement also affects MiniDiscs for recording, MD data for recording, and MiniDV cassettes. Although the notice is under the "Recording Media" category, the company appears to list both regular and recorded. There's room for misinterpretation due to machine translation, so we've reached out to Sony for clarification The company ended the production of consumer Blu-ray and optical disks in mid-2024, indicating it would retain production lines for business and corporate clients until it became unprofitable. However, as the general public prefers streaming services over physical media, commercial sales have quickly become insufficient to sustain Sony's optical media business. The first Blu-ray disc prototype was released in 2000, designed as a successor to the DVD, and competed against Toshiba's HD DVD. Both Blu-ray and HD DVD became publicly available in 2006. Still, the latter lost out to the former in the format wars because of Sony's partnership with film studios and the inclusion of Blu-ray technology in the PlayStation 3. This end of production would make Blu-ray discs and players much more challenging to acquire from retail stores, although they're still widely available on online platforms like Amazon. While ODD ownership peters out, many users store important files using cloud storage. However, this usually has a monthly cost and could become prohibitive if you store a large amount of data. Putting your data online also raises a lot of security issues. Some users and organizations prefer storing files on hard drives, which typically come with a lifespan estimated at five years. If you don't move their contents to a new drive within that time, you risk losing the information within them -- something that the music industry is just discovering now. If stored properly, optical media could be viable for decades, which makes it an ideal medium for long-term cold storage. While Sony is no longer making Blu-ray, its competitor, Pioneer, has found a niche in long-term storage and created a Blu-ray disc designed to last a hundred years. Other researchers are even working on archival glass storage that should last 5,000 years. Still, Sony's ending production of Blu-ray disks marks the end of an era. This will likely make it harder for movie collectors to have their curated media libraries and have the tactile feeling of selecting their favorite movie from a stack of hundreds. But this move to streaming libraries, where there is no ownership and the movies and shows you watch could simply disappear without warning, reminds us how fleeting life can be. Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware Newsletter Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. [ ][ ]Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands[ ]Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors[Sign me up] By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. TOPICS Sony See all comments (19) Jowi Morales Jowi Morales Social Links Navigation Contributing Writer Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He's been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he's been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics. More about storage Corsair EX400U External SSD Corsair USB4 external SSD boasts speeds up to 4,000 MB/s -- $139 for 1TB, $199 for 2TB, $359 for 4TB The Crucial P310 NVMe SSD with heatsink Crucial P310 SSD with heatsink carries a $30 to $40 premium -- $105 for 1TB and $160 for 2TB Latest Cyberpunk 2077 Cyberpunk 2077 2.21 patch adds DLSS 4 support days before RTX 50 series debut See more latest > [ ] 19 Comments Comment from the forums * Gururu I have two disc drives (BR and DVD). Is it safe to take them out? Is the storage any safer than USBs? Reply * tommo1982 This means, it is very possible, PS6 won't have optical drive. Reply * Jabberwocky79 This is sad. Every time I'm streaming a movie and see all of the banding lines and compression artifacts I can't help but lament the demise of physical media. Why did we settle for this? I know there are workarounds, like storing massive media files on a home server, but that comes with its own challenges, and you still have to start with a decent quality source, like a disc. Reply * TheOtherOne The major issue with any streaming service is, despite you keep paying them a hefty sub fee every single month, at the end of the day you NEVER own any of it. As soon as you end your sub, you lose access to the movies. I know there's option to buy digital releases too, but as we have seen in the past due to various reasons like Rights agreements or the service simply shutting down, you lose even that digital release you PAID for. Reply * Jabberwocky79 ^^^ Yeah, digital ownership is a whole other issue, and also a huge one... bigger than the quality issue really. The streaming age just sucks period IMHO. Reply * Jame5 I guess I need to buy one last spindle of BD-R's before they are out of print as it were. Reply * why_wolf TheOtherOne said: The major issue with any streaming service is, despite you keep paying them a hefty sub fee every single month, at the end of the day you NEVER own any of it. As soon as you end your sub, you lose access to the movies. I know there's option to buy digital releases too, but as we have seen in the past due to various reasons like Rights agreements or the service simply shutting down, you lose even that digital release you PAID for. As long as there is still DRM on a digital purchase you didn't really "buy" rather you entered into a long-term "lease" which the selling party can revoke at any time for any reason. Only old school MP3s can be truly "bought" since Napster/Limewire managed to break the record industry. DRM is gone for music. Streaming managed to stave off the same fate for movies though. Though with the cableTVification of streaming services it seems like pirating is on the rise again. Reply * scottsoapbox 5 year life of HDD? That can't possibly be right. Reply * why_wolf Do we know how many other blu-ray disc factories are still operational? Reply * why_wolf scottsoapbox said: 5 year life of HDD? That can't possibly be right. The article is over selling the statistics from the Backblaze HDD longevity reports. I think 5 years is when they start to see the rate of drive failure begin a steady increase. Its still very low at 5 years though. Of course that's with drives that are under 24 /7 load. 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