Sony Corp. has made a rather odd-looking purchase with the acquisition of Optical Archive Inc. – startup spun out of Facebook that’s marketing an innovative way to use Blu-ray technology.

The startup was founded by ex-Facebook employee Frank Frankovsky, who led the social media giant’s hardware design and supply-chain operations for about five years before leaving the social network in March 2014 to found Optical Archive. Framkovsky is equally well known as head of the Open Compute Project, a multicompany effort that promotes open-source designs for computer servers and network switches of the sort used by Facebook and other Web companies.

While Frankovsky was at Facebook, the social media firm looked at using Blu-ray as a potentially cost-saving data storage medium instead of a medium for videos. The Wall Street Journal says Sony will probably develop a similar system that may one day be employed in data centers.

After leaving Facebook, Frankovsky’s founded Optical Archive, which built a storage system that can pack one petabyte of data into a single cabinet filled with 10,000 Blu-ray disks. The solution incorporates a robotic retrieval system similar based on those that retrieve tape from archived storage.

Facebook never got around to using the earlier system it was working on, but is now testing the one built by Optical Archive in the cold storage facility at its Oregon data center , the WSJ claims. While at Facebook, Frankovsky was responsible for streamlining data center hardware, and Blu-rays were used for “ultra-cold storage”. While the technology is not suitable for primary storage because it doesn’t allow for instant retrieval of data, it could be a very cheap solution for data that is rarely accessed, Frankovsky told Wired.

According to Frankovsky, Blu-ray offers up to 50 percent savings compared with hard disk storage. In addition, Blu-ray is more energy efficient, using 80 percent less power than regular cold storage racks because the cabinet only uses energy while writing data during the initial burn.

Blu-ray also offers extreme longevity, with each disc being certified to retain data for at least fifty years, and it’s durable too, because the technology works fine in most environments.

Frankovsky clearly recognized the technology’s potential, and now Sony, which created Blu-ray, has noticed too. Indeed, the Wall Street Journal says that Sony is currently developing discs that can hold as much as a terabyte of data. If so, that would enable most companies to keep their entire cold storage on a few flimsy plastic disks.

If Sony can popularize Blu-ray as a cold storage method it would mark a dramatic revival of a technology that began dying almost as soon as it was released. Blu-ray discs hit the shelves at the same time as the emergence of torrents, streaming movies and digital downloads.

Sony said it’s planning to expand its existing optical disc production lines to accommodate corporate demand for the technology.

“This acquisition marks the beginning of our commitment to this growing market,” said Terushi Shimizu, deputy president of Sony’s device solutions group.

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