Holographic Data Storage – The Next Generation
By Jason Cole
All data storage in modern times are done on disc, be it a computer hard drive or a CD-R disc. Blu-ray and HD-DVD have upped the ante when it comes to the amount of data that you can hold on a disc, but at some time they will eventually become obsolete. Right now our data storage needs are currently met, but as the amount of data available continues to rise, storage technology must evolve with it. The next generation of storage technology is going to be holographic data storage. It sounds pretty futuristic, what is holographic storage?
With CD-R and DVD-R technology, data is stored on the surface of the disc as distinct magnetic or optical changes. With holographic data storage, an entire page of information is stored at once as an optical interference pattern within a thick, photosensitive optical material.
How do they do this?
This is done by intersecting two coherent laser beams, the object and reference beams, within the storage material. The object beam contains all the information needing to be stored, while the reference beam is designed to be simple to produce. The resulting interference between the beams causes chemical and/or physical changes in the photosensitive medium that the data is being stored on. Basically “burning” the information to the storage medium, this mark is called the grating. When the grating is illuminated by one of the two waves that were used to record the information, the light is refracted in a way that the other wave is reconstructed. These gratings can be stacked or superimposed in the same thick piece of media, as long as there is a distinguishing spacing or direction, allowing the stacked bits of data to be accessed independently. In addition to larger storage capabilities, holographic storage also boasts to accelerate data transfer rates to about one billion bits per second and reduce access times to just tens of microseconds.
Holographic Memory Cards
Welcome to Holographic Memory Cards. Holographic memory storage is a potential extremely high-capacity data storage technology, versus currently used hard drives and DVDs. These current storage technologies rely on individual bits being stored as distinct magnetic or optical changes on the surface of the recording medium. Holographic memory cards overcome this limitation by recording information throughout the volume of the card. Holographic memory cards can also record multiple images in the same area utilizing light at different angles.
Additionally, whereas hard drives and dvds record information a bit at a time in a linear fashion, holographic storage is capable of recording and reading millions of bits in parallel. This enables data transfer rates much greater.
Not available yet, here’s a picture of the Holographic Versatile Card (HVC) from the company Optware. One of its main advantages is the lack of moving parts when played. From a Wikipedia source, Optware claims that the card will hold 30GB of data, have a write speed 3 times faster than Blu-ray, and be approximately the size of a credit card, and would cost about $1 US.
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Where can I obtain [relatively cheap] holographic paper?
I’m designing tickets for a school show, and I’m concerned about counterfeit tickets (it’s happened in the past at our school). I’m looking to find holographic cardboard (cardboard that has triangles in it, and every other triangle reflects light). Which I could attach to each legitimate ticket that our art class makes. I’m not worried about the holograms containing actual data in them, I’d just want them to shine so that the ticket-takers know what’s legit and any possible forgers would be scared off. I need it to be as cheap as possible (school budget), and available in bulk if possible. Thanks for any information I receive!
(holograms i’m looking for kind of resemble this image: farm2.static.flickr.com/1240/775287793_eaa32eec0a.jpg?v=0)
holographic data
Playstation 4 with with HVD(Holographic Versatile Disc)technolog?
Playstation 4 with with HVD(Holographic Versatile Disc)technolog?
sony launch new sony playstation 4 with hvd tech.this is next gen gaming console with very very high and real graphics.the new hvd disk hold storage capacity of 3.9 terabytes (39,000 GB) and a data transfer rate of 1 GB/s, which is at least six times more than the speed of DVD players. This would, without a doubt, become a giant step in revolutionizing the disk storage industry.
Optical Storage
Most optical storage devices, such as a standard CD (Compact Disc), save one bit per pulse. HVDs manage to store 60,000 bits per pulse in the same place, in a truncated cone shape, that has a diameter of 500 micrometers at the top and 200 micrometers at the bottom. The HVD Alliance is trying to improve the storage capacity further to touch its dream 3.9 TB mark by inserting a larger number of cones on each track.
Competing Technologies
In addition to HDV, other proprietary standards are making advances optical disk techno
Holographic Memory Cards
Redefining What’s Possible in Data Storage
Brian Lawrence of GE Global Research explains how he is redefining what is possible in data storage with holographic discs. … GE Global Research holographic data storage lasers discs
RFID capsules
