The storage capacity of Blu-ray doubled. Companies such as Sharp, TDK and Verbatim are preparing for launching disks that store 100 gigabytes of data.

On Friday (30 / 7), Sharp will start selling in Japan, the first Blu-ray disc with a capacity of 100 GB. The hard-100BR1 VR can be written only once and is in accordance with the BDXL specification, which was announced in April by the Blu-ray Disc Association.

Last week, TDK announced that it would begin selling 100 GB drives in September, according to company statement. On Tuesday (27 / 7), the hardware company announced it would deliver Verbatim disks of 100 GB in 2011.

The Blu-ray sold today offer capacities of 25 GB single layer and 50GB on two layers. The disk 100 GB adds a third tier of storage for extra capacity.

In theory, media that follow the format BDXL would be able to offer up to 128 GB with a fourth tier.

But the media BDXL not work with Blu-ray drives available today – you’ll need to buy new drives. Sharp also announced new Blu-ray player and Aquos BD-BD-HDW700 HDW70 capable of recording data on disks of 100 GB. The writers also go on sale in Japan on in August.

The Blu-ray discs are best known as a means of distributing movies, but Blu-ray Disc Association proposes the use of BDXL in other applications such as data backup and storage of high-definition video. The association argues that the high capacity media is not necessary for movies, because 50 GB is sufficient even for high-definition movies created in 3D on Blu-ray 3D.

Via: PC World.