Holographic Recording Inches Closer
Holographic Recording Inches Closer
March 30th, 2006: InPhase Technologies has broken the data density record and used holographic storage techniques to cram 515Gbits of data into one square inch.
The company claims it has achieved the highest level of data density in the world with its technology, which almost doubles magnetic drives 300Gbits per square inch.
InPhase’s holographic technology differs from traditional hard drive recording techniques in that it records and reads volume instead of just surface information. Geek.com observed that if your media was the size of a credit card, InPhase’s technology would be able stuff around 384Gb’s of data into it. The best recordable DVD’s - with more surface area than the example - currently hold around 10Gb.
IDM reported in December 2005 that InPhase has plans to release a 300Gbits hard drive later this year, with capacities ranging up to 1.6Tbits planned and transfer rates currently said to be 20Mb/s. According to InPhase, this is “compatible with high-definition television transmission rates, and high-end enterprise computer applications.”
InPhase says that the impact this increase in density will have is huge. “For the home video fan, one disk could hold the equivalent of 106 DVD movies. For IT managers dealing with archiving millions of email messages, higher densities mean savings on space, time, and power.”
“IT professionals are experiencing enormous growth in their data archives,” says Wolfgang Schlichting, Research Director, Removable Storage at IDC. “InPhase Technologies' announcement is an important milestone in storage density, demonstrating impressive capacity increases enabled by holographic storage.”
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