Remember when having a hard drive with a single gig was a big deal? Remember when it was hard to believe anyone would ever need more than that? Remember when it was hard to believe we’d ever need half of that? It wasn’t that long ago. And what about the needs of the not-too-distant future? Kate Greene of TechnologyReview.com writes:

Holographic storage company InPhase Technologies announced this week that it has broken a storage density record by writing 64.3 gigabytes of data onto a single square inch of disc space. This advance could eventually lead to a holographic disc that can hold more than 100 DVD-quality movies, according to the company. By comparison, magnetic disks, such as those in the hard drives of computers, can manage a storage density of about 37.5 gigabytes per square inch of disk.

“We’ve now demonstrated that we’re more than two years ahead of magnetic storage,” says Kevin Curtis, chief technology officer of InPhase, a Longmont, CO, company. Curtis explains that while magnetic storage - the leading option for storing large amounts of data - is quickly approaching its physical limit, holographic storage will grow rapidly without major technological overhauls for at least another five to six years.

InPhase plans to release its first two products at the end of this year: a holographic disk drive and a 300-gigabyte disc. This rollout will be followed by 800-gigabyte discs in 2008 and 1.6 terabyte (1,600 gigabyte) discs in 2010, which, Curtis says, will be compatible with the holographic disk drive released in 2006…

[tags]hologram storage,magnetic storage,media storage,inphase technologies,kevin curtis[/tags]