Holographic storage technology takes to stage with 300GB disks

Holographic technology has sometimes been dubbed hollow-graphic because it has held many promises but has never really filled them, until now that is.

InPhase technologies, a Bell Labs spinoff (and protégé), may hold the key to multi-terabyte long term storage at an affordable price; ideal for those libraries of HD videos and multi mega pixels photos.

Holographic disks has been announced to be "nearing" launch since 2005 at least and it looks as if InPhase Tapestry hologram storage device will be launched in May.

The data will be stored on a 120mm clear plastic disks in a cartridge case; think of it as a CDROM size disk in a slim CD case.

The disk has a shelf life of 50-years at least 20 times more than some entry level recordable DVD blanks and although, they cost $180 each, will be able to store up to 300GB of data, that's 450 CDROMs or around 10 Bluray disks.

Read/Write speeds are expected to hover around 20MB/sec and the drive itself will cost you a not-so-cool $18,000.

InPhase says that "Subsequent generations of WORM devices will increase capacity to 800GB and transfer rate to 80MB/sec and then to 1.6TB and 120MB/sec"; the latter being expected for late next year. Tags: Storage