Holographic storage technology finally arrives
Holographic storage technology finally arrives
Apr 19, 2005: The fruits of years of research and testing have finally been released to the world with the release of the first prototype of commercial holographic data storage.
InPhase Technologies and Hitachi Maxell conducted a public demonstration of the device - called InPhase Tapestry - at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention in Las Vegas.
The prototype is a 300 gigabyte drive that can store more than 35 hours of broadcast-quality high-definition video on a single disk. InPhase said that its planned family of Tapestry holographic drives will have capacities that range to 1.6 terabytes on a single disk.
Heralded by the company as a breakthrough in data storage, InPhase said its prototype demonstrates a new generation of data storage, well beyond magnetic and optical formats. InPhase has created a new class of photopolymers, and the delivery of a stable recording device, to achieve a working commercial holographic system. The initial commercial units will be delivered to original equipment manufacturer (OEM) customers in 2006.
InPhase has created a technique called polytopic recording, which provides greater data density by overlaying "books" of data, rather than pages of data. The InPhase polytopic technique eliminates the space between books of data, thereby increasing data densities. This innovative technique will be implemented in all generations of the InPhase Tapestry product family.
"Today, the professional video industry will see a conclusive demonstration of the next phase in digital recording. The InPhase Tapestry prototype heralds a new era of storage, moving holographic storage from research to commercialisation," said Nelson Diaz, president and CEO of InPhase Technologies, at the demonstration. "We have successfully developed, through a collaborative approach, a breakthrough for a wide array of recording and archive applications – from enterprise to consumer – that will lead to more secure, high-capacity, long-life storage at more cost-effective prices."
The prototype drive records data into InPhase’s patented two-chemistry Tapestry photopolymer write-once material. Hitachi Maxell is developing high-volume media manufacturing technologies and has designed and developed the disk cartridge for easy integration in automated library systems.
The Tapestry prototype drive has a small computer systems interface (SCSI) interface and is using the Pegasus Disk Technologies Windows device driver. InPhase is working with Pegasus to provide file system connectivity for the Windows operating system as part of a total data storage solution. From a system perspective, the device presents itself like a drive letter with complete random access, in less than 200 milliseconds, to any file on the holographic disk.
Related Article: