1. Introduction Many organisations now recognise the strategic advantage that can be gained from immediate access to their most important asset - their data. The oil and gas exploration industry generates and processes more data per second than other industry sectors. It is this fact that has driven vendors to confront the problems of data storage, harnessing both data storage technology and data management strategies to produce the Databank concept. The construction of a Databank involves deriving strategy for a data storage hierarchy. This hierarchy is based on frequency of use and required access to a specific piece of data. This data can range from a few bytes to entire files. Since fast access storage methods are expensive (e.g. RAM), slower methods are often more popular (e.g. magnetic tape). A large storage system may even consist of a mixture of technologies. Other factors also need addressing before the selection of a suitable Data Management solution. This paper concentrates on the high-capacity media technology which constitute the more popular end of the Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM) pyramid. The selection of a suitable high-capacity archival media can be based on several quantifiable factors : Volume of the source archive. Storage capacity of the target media. Data transfer rates required from target system. Compatibility with current technology. Cost of the technology. (Cost Per MB) Target media longevity. Industry standards. High Capacity Media can be categorised by the way in which the data is recorded on the media. This provides the following three categories : Longitudinal recording Technology, Helical Scan Technology and Optical Technology. Table of Contents Introduction Longitudinal Recording Technology Helical Scan Technology Optical Technology Summary The Future See other technical papers.