The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of the state of the art of optical storage media.General specification and performance data are presented for a variety of relevant direct digital and holographic storage media.Observed trends are noted, and suggestions for development emphasis in the 1980's are made.An overall conclusion is that the performance of storage media has improved significantly over the past five years.With appropriate systems engineering, the storage medium no longer need slow or prevent the future development of competitive optical information handling systems.