Optical storage Optical storage Optical storage is the storage of data on an optically readable medium. Data is recorded by making marks in a pattern that can be read back with the aid of light, usually a beam of laser light precisely focused on a spinning optical disc. An older example of optical storage that does not require the use of computers, is microform. There are other means of optically storing data and new methods are in development. An optical disc drive is a device in a computer that can read CD-ROMs or other optical discs, such as DVDs and Blu-ray discs.
Optical disc to be used in the Library of Congress archiving efforts. The STC disks utilized a sealed cartridge with an optical window for protection . The CD-ROM format was developed by Sony and Denon, introduced in 1984, as an extension of Compact Disc Digital Audio and adapted to hold any form of digital data. The same year, Sony demonstrated a LaserDisc data storage format, with a larger data capacity of 3.28 GB. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Optex, Inc. of Rockville, MD, built an erasable optical digital video disc system using Electron Trapping Optical Media (ETOM). Although this technology