Digital Home Thoughts: Maxell Releases Holographic Storage Medium

"Forget about Blu-Ray, or HD-DVD… I’ll take holographic disks anytime. Maxell, in a joint venture with InPhase Technologies has announced the release of a Holographic optical recording device that will eventually support cartridges of up to 1.6TB (that’s a “t”, as in 1,600 Gb) with transfer rates reaching 120Mbps MBPS (as in megabytes). To put things in perspective, this means that one 5 1/4 inch disk will be able to hold as much information as 63 DVDs. What’s this fancy new technology you ask? Well, for one, it’s not shiny new. But that’s not the point. Holographic recording technology utilizes intersecting signal and reference laser beams to store data in a number of 3D hologram images capable of saving hundreds of data pages in a single location. In principle, laser beams can be moved with no mechanical components, allowing access times of the order of 10 µs, faster than any conventional disk drive will ever be able to randomly access data."



Holographic storage isn't anything new. In fact, in 2001 I did my first and only stock purchase in a company that was "close" to releasing holographic optical discs. They had partners lined up to produce the drives and the discs...and they never went anywhere. The stock was de-listed and I lost my investment. So as you can imagine, I'm a little sceptical of anything related to holographic technology. Let's hope Maxell is more successful at this venture than the idiots that lost me money. ;-)