I wonder if we'll remember the days when computers had hard drives?

[War Lord]

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1997498,00.asp

Holographic Storage On Track For December Ship Date

The first holographic storage media will begin shipping by Christmas, executives at media maker Hitachi Maxell have indicated.
In an interview, Rich D'Ambrise, director of technical marketing at Maxell, said that 300-Gbyte holographic disks will begin shipping either in November or December, as InPhase Technologies, the developer of the holographic technology, said last year.

However, D'Ambrise also indicated that the company will move to a second-generation, 800-Gbyte disc in 2008, and has targeted a 1.6-Tbyte removable cartridge by 2010.

Holographic storage uses a patented two-chemistry Tapestry photopolymer write-once material. The recording material is 1.5 mm thick and is sandwiched between two 130 mm diameter transmissive plastic substrates. Last year, InPhase indicated that the first incarnation of the InPhase technology would be used for archival purposes, and D'Ambrise indicated that that will still be the case: media will be roughly $120 to $180 apiece, and drives will cost about $15,000.

"We're happy so far that we haven't hit any obstacles with the drive or the media, and that we're on schedule to deliver to the market," D'Ambrise said.

Two alpha sites have deployed the technology, at Pappas Broadcasting in Reno, and at entertainment giant Turner Broadcasting, he said.




Update: InPhase To Demo Holographic Storage
Samsung, Seagate Prep ReadyDrive Storage
eSATA—Fast External Storage
100-GB Holographic Storage Due This Year?
Should You Bother With Online Storage?
While the company is focusing on the lucrative enterprise storage market, Hitachi Maxell is also exploring more conventional storage options. The storage capacity of the technology is governed by the spot size of the laser, and a 100-Gbyte or 75-Gbyte consumer version could theoretically be created in the size of a postage stamp, D'Ambrise said.
"We're absolutely looking a prototypes of credit-card media [sizes]," D'Ambrise said.

D'Ambrise also confirmed that Maxell is developing a stacked volumetric optical disc (SVOD), essentially a jukebox-in-a-cartridge of ten stacked 9.4-GByte DVDs, for a total of 940 Gbytes. Each disc is 92 micrometers thick, about one-thirteenth the thickness of a DVD, he said.

 

[War Lord]

I honestly thought you guys might find it interesting.

 

[Drakon]

I find it kinda interesting.

 

[Green Lantern]

1.6 T-Byte?!? Jebus!!! I don't think even I could use all of that...

 

[jaguarr]

Between this and the advancements that are being made in flash memory capacity, it's very possible that the hard drive as we know it will go the way of the do-do, eventually.

jag

 

[Indiglo]

That's a s**t load of porn...

 

[Leto Atrides]

They said it's intended for archival purposes, and is write-once. Does that mean it can't be used in as a hard drive replacement? (I'm sure if the answer is yes, a yet should be tacked on, but wondering).

Still, just as a storage media in general that is very interesting. Especially removable 1+ terrabyte storage.

 

[War Lord]

They said it's intended for archival purposes, and is write-once. Does that mean it can't be used in as a hard drive replacement? (I'm sure if the answer is yes, a yet should be tacked on, but wondering).

Still, just as a storage media in general that is very interesting. Especially removable 1+ terrabyte storage.

When CD drives and DVD drives first came out, they were also write-once. It's only a matter of time before it becomes rewriteable and the price drops to within affordable ranges.

 

[Superman4ever]

I want to see a picture of this thing working...so cool!

1.6 Tbytes in 2010...

 

[Edward Brock]

As the article says, this product is aimed mostly at the enterprise storage market, back-ups and stuff like that. As for hard drives dissapearing the question is, will holographic/flash/whatever drivers ever be fast enough to completely replace magnetic HDs?

 

[War Lord]

As the article says, this product is aimed mostly at the enterprise storage market, back-ups and stuff like that. As for hard drives dissapearing the question is, will holographic/flash/whatever drivers ever be fast enough to completely replace magnetic HDs?

That's only because it's too expensive for the home market at the moment. Plasma tv's used to be primarily targeted at the business sect as well, because they cost $20,000 for a 40 inch, which was out of range for 99.9% of consumers.

It'll very likely come down in price to a range the consumers are most comfortable with at some point, because that's where the real profit is.

As for speed, I dunno but it'd surprise me if it was slow and stayed slow.

 

[Edward Brock]

USB 2.0 drives, for example, get a lot of praise but their still very slow compared to IDE/SATA HDD's.

 

[War Lord]

USB 2.0 drives, for example, get a lot of praise but their still very slow compared to IDE/SATA HDD's.

Their advantage is that any machine that uses USB can be hooked up. No more trying to fit power cords specifically into specific computer inlets.

New technologies are always slower and less powerful than their future brethren. Though they say that they'll get 1.6T by 2010, it wouldn't be surprising if it it topped 3.2T in the end.

I would think that it'd be about as fast as a CD or DVD, since that's what it is.

 

[Edward Brock]

Right. This technology will probabily also destroy any of HD-DVD or Blu-Ray's chances on that market. Hehe.

 

[War Lord]

Right. This technology will probabily also destroy any of HD-DVD or Blu-Ray's chances on that market. Hehe.

I think I'll wait to get a recordable DVD.

 

[Edward Brock]

Whadyou mean?

 

[zer00]

Oh my god...imagine all the porn

 

[Flexo]

Oh my god...imagine all the porn

I... knew you were going to say that.

 

[War Lord]

Whadyou mean?

It hardly makes any sense to get a recordable DVD right now or even blu-ray or HD if the next step of holographic is just around the corner.

 

[Edward Brock]

Uh, for a company maybe, but for a consumer? $15,000 is still a lot of cash... and it'll take quite some time until the prices go down. If they ever do.

 

[War Lord]

Uh, for a company maybe, but for a consumer? $15,000 is still a lot of cash... and it'll take quite some time until the prices go down. If they ever do.

That's $15,000 today, but probably $500 5 years from now.

It will come down as the cost of creating the research and product comes down and production methods improve. The real money is always the mass production and distribution of items, not keeping prices high and selling a few a year.

I'm sure the company would rather make a profit of $50 and selling hundreds of thousands of their product a year than $10 grand and a few hundred a year.

 

[Edward Brock]

That's $15,000 today, but probably $500 5 years from now.

I personally think that such a drastic price reduction is very doubtfull, specially in such a short term. Even the first DVD drives cost like $400 tops. And, as you say, the real money is in mass production and distribution of items. But if that was their intention then wouldn't they have done it from the beginning? Every successfull format has been available to general public since it's infancy.

 

[War Lord]

I personally think that such a drastic price reduction is very doubtfull, specially in such a short term. Even the first DVD drives cost like $400 tops. And, as you say, the real money is in mass production and distribution of items. But if that was their intention then wouldn't they have done it from the beginning? Every successfull format has been available to general public since it's infancy.

I wasn't intending to be specific. It might very well be $500 or it could be $1,500. I just merely meant that in 5 years it will be a lot cheaper than it is now.

I remember the first DVD players and they started at around $3,000 and they didn't even record. . Same with VCR's.

I'm sure they'd like it in every person's home right now if they could, but there are realities, among them the huge investment dollars that went into making the product in the first place that needs to be paid off first.

Since they aren't Sony, it's quite likely that they have limiting factors such as large loans, lack of ease of use or functionality, there might be bugs because it's so new and other things that are typical with new, paradigm-changing stuff.

 

[Malice]

I have read a number of articles recently.

A new way of rotating the magnetic field on a hard drive a few degrees, is enabling them to double, triple and even quadruple the drive size.

Also, I have heard, some manufacturers, are actually, looking to start replacing conventional hard drives with solid state memory (like USB drives, but internal) within the next year or two. They are much more pricey at the moment which is the prohibitive factor. These would be nice, they generate no heat, and have no moving parts, therefore also use much less power.

 

[SpideyLad]

That........is alot of memory!