Holographic 1600 gigabyte discs by 2006?

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-01-09 02:36pm

I'm highly skeptical, but it's the first I've heard of it, so I don't know. Anybody know if this is legit or bogus?

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2005-01-09 03:28pm

I've heard of this before by another company. The discs were read and written by a UV laser (in itself, expensive enough) and enabled normal sized CDs to carry well over a TB of data and look translucent bar a slight blue tint where the many layers of data are stored.

It didn't take-off, obviously, but maybe now they've got cheaper technology and learnt some new tricks after DVD.

CDS · Post by **CDS** » 2005-01-09 03:49pm

I don't think they've made any real effort with that.. I can see it seeing the day of light towards the latter end of the year. Afterall, DVD is relatively new

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2005-01-09 03:50pm

I can't fathom why the home computer user needs a terabyte of storage at the moment.

Faram · Post by **Faram** » 2005-01-09 03:56pm

PORN! And loads of it.

You can NEVER have enuff PORN!

Eleas · Post by **Eleas** » 2005-01-09 03:57pm

For backing up your porn, obviously.

Seriously though, it's not gonna be available for the moment either, so it's okay.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2005-01-09 04:09pm

*raises hand*

Seriously, I've nearly used up my 120 GB HD, and I've been going easy on it

I would be ripping all my DVD's, creating and mounting disk images of every game CD I have, etc, if I had a terabyte.

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2005-01-09 04:15pm

High definition video is ridiculously storage intensive, even in a compressed state. If you consider the possibility of working with 1080i/p HD video is an uncompressed state, you are looking at filling that terabyte drive in a matter of minutes.

As for this specific technology, holographic storage has always been seen as the successor to modern magneto-optical storage devices, it's just a question of when and what sort of technological hurdles we are going to see along the way.

Dahak · Post by **Dahak** » 2005-01-09 04:23pm

Isn't that the same technology these guys using Tesa sticky tape for storage used?

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2005-01-09 04:52pm

Even worse would be if you wanted to start editing film or at film resolution. 24p film is horribly space intensive, especially when you start going into the visually lossless range (which some studios are doing to archive old stuff)

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2005-01-09 04:58pm

as tempting as this technology sounds, i'd imagine anything offering this large a capacity would be horribly expensive. even more so than blu-ray is right now possibly.

Robert Treder · Post by **Robert Treder** » 2005-01-09 05:22pm

I've got a big suitcase filled with DVDs all full of video, music, and software. It'd be quite nice if there were a more convenient way of storing that much data.

SPOOFE · Post by **SPOOFE** » 2005-01-09 05:27pm

I always laugh at people that say, "Oh, people don't NEED that." It shows a decided short-sightedness on their part. People don't NEED anything more than a fire, a spear, and a mate. All of civilization is utterly non-essential.

If someone finds a way to make 1.6 terabytes cheap and affordable, then people will WANT it, for no other reason than they can have it for cheap. They'll find something to load onto it, eventually.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2005-01-09 06:03pm

A certain quote by Billy Gates is applicable here.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-01-09 07:28pm

So the consensus is that holographic storage is indeed the next technological step in storage, but that these "mass market players by 2006" people are probably full of shit?

SPOOFE · Post by **SPOOFE** » 2005-01-09 07:32pm

Yeah, but tech-heads are always predicting huge breakthroughs "coming soon". People don't care if they're gonna have uber-tech in twenty years...

See, the people that want to make this need monetary funds. In order to get them, they need excitement for the product in the marketplace. In order to drum up that excitement, they make announcements like this.

I remember back in, like, 1998 or something, there was a tiny CD-like storage disc about the size of a penny that supposedly could store hundreds of gigabytes. Unfortunately, there was no way to actually READ that data. Of course, that little factoid didn't stop them from trying to get people excited about it.

Sharp-kun · Post by **Sharp-kun** » 2005-01-09 08:42pm

I've filled up 500Gb. I can see me using a Tb by the summer.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2005-01-10 12:52am

With that sort of storage space I could catalog and store the entire archives of the University Geophysical collection! Ok, that souds boring, but I'm enthusiastic.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2005-01-10 03:17am

2010 would be more realistic. 2006 would be stretching it, since the technology needs time to be perfected to the point where it's cheap enough for mass market distribution. look at how long dvds have taken to become saturated in the marketplace, for example.

wautd · Post by **wautd** » 2005-01-10 05:16am

was thinking the same thing. Now if only internet got a million times faster

Terr Fangbite · Post by **Terr Fangbite** » 2005-01-10 06:50am

I first heard about this technology about 2 years ago while doing a project for my computer class. I do expect that in 2006 we'll have that storage medium available. Will it be cheap? No. Will it be widespread? No. However, I think the 2010 mark sounds good for when common man begins to really see it in use.

I wonder how much extra fotage one can place on that for the next "Uber-1 Holo disk Lord of the Rings Extra-Extended Edition with over 100 hours of bonus fotage!"

Robert Walper · Post by **Robert Walper** » 2005-01-10 10:33am

Actually, I would be one of the first to line up buying this sucker. I'd need that much room. Mind you, I doubt I'd use an entire CD, but there's alot of data I can back up. Music files, funny video files, game patches, game mods. Right now I need two or three typical CDs to back up stuff I consider a pain in the ass to recover otherwise.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman · Post by **Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman** » 2005-01-10 10:36am

No porns?

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2005-01-10 10:06pm

How long do you suppose it'd take to write all 1.6tb in a single run?

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2005-01-10 11:22pm

Everyone who has or wants to jump on my back (as I expected many would), I was very careful to add "home" and "at the moment". Obviously it would be very useful in business or industry, and I'm sure someday we'll all be running 5000x5000 resolution or some crazy shit like that.