Topic: Hardware

Gallery: GE develops 500GB holographic drive

Summary: After years of trying, GE says that it has developed micro-holographic material that records data at the same speed as Blu-ray disks.

By Robin Harris | July 26, 2011 -- 14:14 GMT (07:14 PDT)

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One of the pioneers in hologram storage was InPhase Technologies which went out of business in 2010 after investing 9 years and about $100 million into research. InPhase couldn't keep up with the year-by-year increases in storage needs and its storage devices could only run about as fast as a thumb drive.

Here's how the company described the hologram recording process:

"Light from a single laser beam is split into two beams, the signal beam (which carries the data) and the reference beam. The hologram is formed where these two beams intersect in the recording medium. The process for encoding data onto the signal beam is accomplished by a device called a spatial light modulator (SLM). The SLM translates the electronic data of 0s and 1s into an optical “checkerboard” pattern of light and dark pixels. The data are arranged in an array or page of over one million bits. The exact number of bits is determined by the pixel count of the SLM."

Credit: InPhase Technologies

Topics: Hardware, Mobility

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9 comments

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scratches will cause read errors.

If you examine the 5 image, the hologram is a small spot on the disk.

Therefore, scratches (at least bad ones) will cause read failures just as they do on any other DVD or CD.

jessepollard
27 July, 2011 05:53

Reply Vote
- RE: Gallery: GE develops 500GB holographic drive
  
  @jessepollard Look at slide 4. You would have to seriously scuff up a disk before it would become an issue. The data in hologram based storage is highly redundant, so you don't lose data from one scratch the way you do with a CD/DVD/Blu Ray.
  
  chadness
  27 July, 2011 12:28
  
  Reply Vote
Your point?

I don't think anyone is hoping for an indestructible technology. We're used to dealing with scratches. This is about 10 times the storage for a comparable price.

tomogden
27 July, 2011 06:10

Reply Vote
Crap

Who wants this BS technology. I hate disk, to unreliable and to many failures when recording ruining a disk. I'll stick with my static devices like SD cards. I haven't used CDs/DVD for anything but movies for years and that's only because that's what the manufacturers put it on. Quit wasing money on useless technology and increase static device storage, reliable and dependable.

alphaxi3
27 July, 2011 13:27

Reply Vote
- RE: Gallery: GE develops 500GB holographic drive
  
  @alphaxi3 <br>I'll betcha this new disk is still reading and writing many times over after you've fried your SD cards from constant rewrites!
  
  panelshop
  27 July, 2011 15:23
  
  Reply Vote
  - RE: Gallery: GE develops 500GB holographic drive
    
    @panelshop
    I'd take that bet. Flash tech is not standing still. My bet is that both undamaged memory and holographic density/reliability will continue to improve following Moore's law.
    
    CyberZombie
    27 July, 2011 15:36
    
    Reply Vote
  - RE: Gallery: GE develops 500GB holographic drive
    
    @panelshop Yeh, right. Do you know how many CD's/DVD's I've had that after about a year I popped them into the drive and could not be read anymore. I've only had one USB plug-in go bad on me in 7yrs and countless CD's/DVD's. That why I always keep backups of those pieces of crap on a hard drive, because its always only a matter of time.
    
    PS: never had a hard crash on me either.
    
    alphaxi3
    27 July, 2011 15:59
    
    Reply Vote
  - RE: Gallery: GE develops 500GB holographic drive
    
    @alphaxi3
    I'm talking about the "New Disk", the holographic drive, not CD/DVD's, time will tell.
    
    My 5 techs I have working on PLCs and robotics averaged 1 to 2 flash drive failures a year (writing multiple times a day) after 4 months our SOP requires a new drive and use the old as a back-up until failure or 4 months whichever comes first.
    
    panelshop
    27 July, 2011 17:06
    
    Reply Vote
  - I'll bet it wont... At least not yet.
    
    @panelshop This is a write-once technology at the moment. Proper holography is based on the same emulsions as photography - basically crystalline, and those things they call holograms on bank cards and the like are micro prisms laser-etched into plastic... Neither are 'rewritable', although developing crystal that phase-changes photoactively isnt out of the question.
    
    SiO2
    29 July, 2011 13:11
    
    Reply Vote