What could be next data storage medium?

[Lanbrown]

There is not doubt about it; holographic is the next storage medium. Development has been ongoing for many years, the storage capacity will far exceed anything that a CD or DVD can hold. A DVD can have to layers, with holographic you have a lot more layers then that and every portion of the cartridge is used.

The question is, will companies waste the time and money on the blue laser? If they do, you will always have backwards compatibility. Once a standard gets implemented, it is very hard to change it later, and a new technology can actually be adopted faster and easier.

Macphoria,

If you read the blue laser discussion, you would have seen the holographic storage remark made by me. Do a little research and you will find all you wanted to know and what it is capable of.

 

[Ryan1524]

Originally posted by Lanbrown
There is not doubt about it; holographic is the next storage medium. Development has been ongoing for many years, the storage capacity will far exceed anything that a CD or DVD can hold. A DVD can have to layers, with holographic you have a lot more layers then that and every portion of the cartridge is used.

The question is, will companies waste the time and money on the blue laser? If they do, you will always have backwards compatibility. Once a standard gets implemented, it is very hard to change it later, and a new technology can actually be adopted faster and easier.

Macphoria,

If you read the blue laser discussion, you would have seen the holographic storage remark made by me. Do a little research and you will find all you wanted to know and what it is capable of.

true, HSD (Holo Storage Discs) have been long in development and will be the next widespread storage medium. the problem is, it's not ready for mainstream consumer market for perhaps another 20-30 years. what fills the gap is most likely the Blue DVDs.

 

[macphoria]

I do think holographic data storage device is on the way and it looks promising. But as Ryan1524 mentioned, I don't think such device will be made available any time soon.

For now, it seems some kind of optical drive, such as Blue Laser DVD, might be a good choice? Greater storage and backward compatibility? I think backward compatibility is very important issue.

I wonder what could bridge the gap between optical disc and holographic data storage?

 

[patrick0brien]

-All

I agree that Holographic is the way to go, considering the density, speed of read/write, and the compactness of the 3 dimentional nature of the medium.

And it may not be too far off. I've been reading items that say that it may only be three or so years away. And this will replace everything, RAMm, HD's, DVD's, CD's, Flash.

It's big.

And it looks to be arriving with practical OLED displays.

As for Blue Laser DVD's, sure, they'll be necessary for HDDVD's when they hit, but a luxury until then. And if Holographic arrives, well, there goes Blue Laser.

BTW- al little info. All a DVD is, is a CD. Two plates of silicon sandwiching a layer of aluminum so thin that if you were able to peel it off the surface of one of the plates and fling it into the air, it would remain suspended like smoke.

What makes the difference is in storage capacity, and that is enabled by the simple fact that a DVD is read with a red laser, and not an infrared one as in CD's. The higher frequency means that one can reduce the pits and lands (1's and 0's) of the surface accordingly. Well, if we move all the way the hell up to 450nm blue laser, it can read even smaller pits and lands. It's simply evolution of the CD.

Wonder if anyone is working on Ultraviolet?

 

[Lanbrown]

Holographic storage will be released in the next 12 to 24 months, not years.

Backwards compatibility has very little to do with it. Studios won't release anything on the blue laser discs until the majority of the population has upgraded. Since they are not selling equipment today and probably won't in the very near future, it will be years before it gets adopted. I could see the use in computers, but not in home entertainment.

Holographic storage won't be used for RAM anytime soon. It currently does not handle ever changing small bits of data very well. Magnetic in the computer will survive for at least another decade until holographic is fully functional to replace everything.

 

[Squire]

In Home Entertainment

Originally posted by Lanbrown
I could see the use (of blue laser) in computers, but not in home entertainment.

Funny you mention that. I was reading a review of a universal dvd player (the Marantz DV-8300) just recently and the last paragraph stuck in my mind.

"With multi-chassis units with outboard DACs and blue laser coming within a couple of years, I cannot see spending huge dollars for an ultimate unit at this time." From Audiophile Audition, March 2003 (http://www.audaud.com/audaud/MAR03/EQUIP/equip1MAR03.html)


That made me think that at least some material is expected on blue laser DVD in the not-so-distant future. I imagine that the price will be high at first, then later, when more people have adopted it, the price will drop. But who knows.

Squire

P.S. I must say that this holographic stuff sounds pretty cool. Neat thread.

 

[Lanbrown]

Digital VHS failed to ever take off. It was slow to come and no one was willing to put much of anything on it until the user base was large enough. The majority of the users are not willing to spend big bucks on the equipment. DVD exploded because of cheap players, which is not what you will see with blue laser equipment products. When DVD player prices were high, the adoption rate was real low. If they come out with blue laser equipment, they will have to convince the public to buy them.

If holographic storage comes out at about the same time, blue laser will have a fight on its hands to survive. Let's face it, it will not survive. It will never have the speed or storage capacity of what holographic can offer.

 

[Squire]

Originally posted by Lanbrown
If holographic storage comes out at about the same time, blue laser will have a fight on its hands to survive. Let's face it, it will not survive. It will never have the speed or storage capacity of what holographic can offer.

Real Question: Will holographic be solely related to the personal computer or are there home entertainment possibilities as well? I think the two (PC and home entertainment) will keep getting closer. If the holographic technology can be implemented in a home theater system, my bet's on it. If not, I'll go with blue laser.

Squire

 

[Lanbrown]

It will be used for almost everything. PC, home entertainment and eventually replace magnetic storage like tapes, hard disks, etc. Later it will replace memory like RAM, Flash, etc. Imagine a computer with one type of storage; it is used for RAM, archival, etc.

Imagine having hundreds of high-definition movies on one little cube. Try that with a DVD. We are talking terabytes for the same size of a DVD that is talking gigabytes.