Optical Jukebox

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What Does Optical Jukebox Mean?

An optical jukebox is a device used for robotic data storage whereby optical discs can be automatically loaded and unloaded without any outside human assistance. These discs are normal data storage discs such as compact discs, DVDs, Ultra Density Optical or Blu-ray discs, and offer terabytes (TB) and petabytes (PB) of secondary storage options.

Optical Jukeboxes are also known as optical disk libraries, robotic drives and autochangers.

Techopedia Explains Optical Jukebox

An optical jukebox can have up to 2000 slots for discs and its performance depends on how quickly, efficiently and effectively it traverses those slots. Rate of transfer depends on a number of factors including sorting algorithms and placement of discs in the slots. This kind of storage device is primarily used on the commercial and industrial scale for backups and disaster recovery situations.

Initially developed for quick and automated disc seeking, optical jukeboxes are now used as a device to store archived data. Data to be stored is written on write once, read many (WORM) type discs, so it cannot be removed or altered.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.