Storage technology, to sum it all up into word, is insane. The pace of which the storage capacity of most forms of tech we use in our lives has expanded is simply mind blowing. Less than a decade ago we were carrying around CD Walkman's that could only play a single 12-track CD, and now we have radio stations worth of music sitting in our pockets thanks to iPods. Burning materials to disc is still a concept that the majority of the public still considers in its infancy, but that hasn't stopped the technology from zooming forward. Just how much so? Well, a new optical disc from Pioneer has the ability to hold more than two standard computer hard drives worth of information.

Showcased for the first time at the IT Month fair, which is currently underway in Taipei, the super multi-layer read-only disc features 16 separate layers on a single side, with each layer containing the storage capacity for 25GB. Add it all up, and that's 400GB of space on a single disc.

The new super disc is based on a standard Blu-ray Disc (BD), though a breakthrough in reflective layer material is what allows the super multi-layer model to achieve such incredible capacity. A normal BD uses a metallic reflective layer, while the latest from Pioneer instead utilizes a dielectric material.

Most excitingly though, is that the technology to use the disc is already available to consumers, as the super-multi layer disc can be read on current Blu-ray players, thanks to the specs of the pick-up head (PUH) of the Pioneer disc being the same as the PUH of standard blank BD discs.

And as with all forms of tech nowadays, the 400GB model is just a step away from already being replaced. Pioneer's internal road map shows that the planned development of the disc include a rewritable version between 2010-2012, and a 1TB model (1,000 GB) by 2013. Considering that most large consumer external hard drives today are 1TB, thinking about putting that much data on a single disc is pretty mind blowing, and its hard to even comprehend the possible applications for needing that kind of space. Well, not when you consider adult themed storage needs, eh?