[curiousuburb]

So the other day I was talking to a post-doc in magnetics (quantum tunneling for HD heads at the moment) about the coming breakthroughs in storage.

He was noting that his current employer is reaching the limits of their current technology (if not the process limit) and will require retool soon, if not a whole new paradigm to maintain competitive advantage in the face of flash memory storage, etc.

I brought up the subject of holographic storage and some research work I've heard of in Canada and the US that is beginning to make the leap from Star Trek fiction of isolinear memory crystals to real world fact, although most of the stuff I'd heard of was still lab-based and hadn't reached even shipping prototype yet.


This morning I'm perusing my morning web reading and lo and behold, /. has a link to a company spun off from Bell Labs who claim to have shipping holographic drives using 407 nm blue lasers with 300GB platters roughly the same size as CDROMs (except they hold more than 460 CDs worth of data).

I poke on over to their website and it appears they've got promo video (3.9MB QT mov of the process) as well as actual prototype units in production at 300GB/disc (3.9MB WMV9 video of drive internals), and lab prototypes at 1.6TB/disc. They claim 5x life over magnetic media, and it's just so much more futuristic sounding.

One platter will eventually hold 106 DVDs. Write speed and track density are doubling each year, and the prototype writes at 23MB/sec and reads 30sec of video in 60 milliseconds. I expect these guys to make a big splash at NAB next month. read the press release

Best of all, for the murbot-wannabe d.i.y. drive mechanics out there, since it's holographic storage, data can usually be rescued even from damaged platters.

Killer holographic drives with frickin' blue lasers!

We now return to your regularly scheduled average technology.

[Majost]

Originally Posted by curiousuburb Best of all, for the murbot-wannabe d.i.y. drive mechanics out there, since it's holographic storage, data can usually be rescued even from damaged platters.

Yeah, I wonder how exactly or if that will work. With a regular hologram, you can shatter them into pieces, and the entire image is on each piece... just dimmer. Every little piece of the hologram contains knowledge of the whole.

But, with traditional holography, you expose the entire thing at the same... not in a piecemeal approach like they suggest here. So, I don't think that data recovery will be quite that robust. But depending upon the way they do it, it can maintain at least some of those properties.

[v.noir]

Do DVDs currently use blue lasers, or did I just make that up? Blue lasers are, as everyone knows, teh win.

[curiousuburb]

Not yet... but the new ones will... hence the name "Blu-ray"

[v.noir]

Mmm, Blu-Ray did lead me to believe that blue laz0rs would be in use. I'm sure something currently uses blue lasers though... Could just be spaceships and super heros of course.

[ghoti]

Originally Posted by Majost Yeah, I wonder how exactly or if that will work. With a regular hologram, you can shatter them into pieces, and the entire image is on each piece... just dimmer. Every little piece of the hologram contains knowledge of the whole.

It's not dimmer, it's less detailed. The information is spread over the whole hologram, and when you look at a piece, you can still see the whole thing. But that doesn't mean that all the information is contained there, the difference is just in the level of detail, not which part of the image is contained.

Originally Posted by Majost But, with traditional holography, you expose the entire thing at the same... not in a piecemeal approach like they suggest here.

Yes, but that's because your eyes want to see the whole image at the same time. There is no reason why you couldn't scan a hologram point by point and then recreate the image that way. That's probably what's done in this case.

BTW, this technology uses effectively the same laser as Blue Ray.

[Jasoco]

The future looks very awesome indeed.

Look at the size of the "prototype" drive. It's the size of a mini-tower. I can see it getting a lot smaller in the coming years. Just wait until personal computers come with this standard.

Question, from the video it looks like this is write only right now. As in backup. Not too bad. But I assume eventually we'll be able to buy rewritable ones? Can they make rewritable ones? How is the data recorded? Melted plastic? I guess it could re-melt it like a CD-RW does.

I for one am excited for the future. Couple that with the multi-touch screen of the future..

http://mblog.lib.umich.edu/~rdivecha...rld_of_sm.html

The Automated House control screens of the future..

http://www.akihabaranews.com/en/news...Panasonic.html

And the gigantic interactive TV wall of the future..

http://www.akihabaranews.com/review-63-X.html

And we've got a very bright future indeed.

It makes me weep how advanced we're getting so fast. I can't wait to actually use these things. In the last 15 years alone we've advanced so far. Think how far we'll get in the next 15.

[Majost]

Originally Posted by Jasoco Question, from the video it looks like this is write only right now. As in backup. Not too bad. But I assume eventually we'll be able to buy rewritable ones? Can they make rewritable ones? How is the data recorded? Melted plastic? I guess it could re-melt it like a CD-RW does.

Hmm... I'm not entirely certain how their system works, but if it works like the holograms I've made, it's entirely write only. It's like a high resolution photo film. Once it's exposed, it's done. I think they've been able to narrow the wavelength down to a very intense and specific wavelength, so it isn't exposed to everyday light, but yeah, it's still a once-and-done deal.

[Legodude522]

So umm, when can I buy one of these drives

[drewprops]

Keen!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_memory

[Jasoco]

If the last 26 years has taught me anything, never underestimate the power of scientific research. If there's a way to make them rewritable, they will find it.