Sony says system supports 100-year data storage.

• Position: E-RECORDS STORAGE - Brief article

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Sony has unveiled technology it says will keep data safe and sound for up to a century. The scalable, jukebox-like optical library system from Sony Optical Archive Inc., is called Everspan.

It is designed to store, retrieve, and read discs that will hold 300GB, with 150GB on each side. Capacity is expected to grow to 1TB over the next five years, IDG News Service reported.

Everspan will start shipping to customers in July.

Long-term storage promises are not new, though, and they fail to address key factors in long-term data preservation. For starters:

* Ability to read the data: The hardware and software needed to retrieve the data from any media are more critical than the longevity of the media it's stored on.

* Technology advances/value of information remains:

With each technology improvement, legacy data gets harder to retrieve and read. Sometimes data can't even be migrated to a new application or system, and...