According to reports, Maxell along with InPhase Technologies will be bringing holographic storage technology to the market at the end of this year. Maxell's director of technical marketing Rich D'Ambrise said that 300GB holographic discs will be available in November or December of this year. Maxell also indicated that sometime in 2008, the company will be introducing second generation disc that store up to 800GB of data. By 2010, Maxell is hoping to introduce 1.6TB holographic discs.
In a report, D'Ambrise said "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". Maxell said that while the technology is currently limited to enterprise customers, producing mass market holographic media and drives shouldn't take long. The company is currently working on producing media in several sizes, including stamps, credit card and regular CD size cartridges. Consumer media will range from 75GB to 100GB in the first generation said D'Ambrise. The new 300GB discs will transfer data at roughly 20MB per second, but Maxell indicated that we should see faster rates as the technology progresses.
According to InPhase:
High-definition video. Data archiving. Medical imaging. Massive databases. These are just some of the applications driving the need for faster, higher capacity storage. Regulatory compliance requirements have also pushed this need into the forefront for many IT departments. InPhase’s holographic storage solutions meet the rapidly growing storage demands of business, government, medical, and educational institutions.
According to Maxell and InPhase, two companies have picked up the technology: Pappas Broadcasting and Turner Broadcasting. InPhase sampled out its technology earlier this year around CES time. Many industry experts expect holographic technology to take off in a big way after 2008. Because data is stored volumetrically throughout the depths of the disc, the technology is able to achieve capacities beyond conventional surface recording techniques used in technologies such as Blu-ray and HD DVD.
Earlier this year, InPhase told the press that holographic storage will be available commercially this year,and the company has stayed true to its claim. As of now, the new holographic drives will cost roughly $15,000 to enterprises and media will cost roughly anywhere from $120 to $180 per disc. The media is currently a write-once only media, with a lifetime of roughly 50 years. Maxell hopes to improve these figures by the time 2008 comes around.
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