Sony announces 128GB BD-R XL discs for consumers

Sony has announced a 128GB BD-R XL disc for consumers that will become available in November this year. The Japanese company boasts that it's world's largest recordable Blu-ray disc. To enable the large capacity, the disc has four layers.

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On November the 10th of this year, the discs should become available in Japan. The discs are available in either a 1, 3 or 5 pack. Sony Japan already lists the discs on its website where they are also available for pre-order. A single disc costs 1480 yen ($13), a 3-disc pack costs 3880 yen ($35) and the 5-pack costs 5980 yen ($53).

To achieve the high capacity, Sony had to develop a combination of unique materials to add a fourth layer to Blu-ray recordable discs. Previously the company sold recordable Blu-ray discs with capacities of 25GB, 50GB and 100GB with respectively 1, 2 and 3 layers. The 128 GB disc stores 32GB per layer and can record at 4x.

Sony claims that the combination of newly developed materials makes the discs suitable for long-term storage.

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It's unknown when, or if, the 128 BD-R XL discs will become available outside Japan.

It took Sony almost 9 years to develop the 128GB discs. In April 2010 the 128GB BD-R XL specification was announced (PDF), together with the 100GB BD-R XL specs.

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