InPhase to ship 300GB holographic drive

When we first heard that InPhase Technologies was prepping a 300GB holographic drive, we found it a little hard to believe. After all, we're still meeting people who get weepy at the possibility of 100GB Blu Ray discs. But the company has apparently come through, and has announced that its Tapestry drives will be available this year, using media developed in partnership with Hitachi Maxell. According to the company, the 130 mm discs will have a transfer rate of 20 megabytes per second, making them usable for media applications. Now if only we didn't have to wait another three years for InPhase's promised terabyte discs.

[felix @ Jan 6th 2006 10:10AM]

sexy. how's about a 100-holographic-disc changer for a ~30TB set-top box?

[mcfly @ Jan 6th 2006 10:11AM]

So who needs all the cat fighting over blu ray or Hd-dvd.

[Neptuned @ Jan 6th 2006 10:12AM]

Bring on the 2 terrabyte iPod!

[christopher @ Jan 6th 2006 10:14AM]

Being able to backup one of my 250Gb HDDs onto a single media item is very, very good news. I can use this today.



-C

[JasenJ1 @ Jan 6th 2006 10:20AM]

I'll believe it when I see one at my local CompUSA, BestBuy, or at NewEgg.com.

[Jacob @ Jan 6th 2006 10:28AM]

wow, this is insane!!!!!!!!

except the 20 MB/s transfer speed. at that rate, it will take 4 hours to burn a complete disc, I was hoping for at least 100 MB/s but oh well

[Keith Wakeham @ Jan 6th 2006 10:32AM]

LTO3 anyone? Unless this drive is in the consumer dollar range LTO3 is such a better alternative. The speed is so slow for this. It will take over 4 hours to fill up a disc at maximum trasfer rate.



If this is targetted at industry it better have cheap discs or cheap drives because LTO3 is 400GB with 160MByte/s transfer rate and has been shipping for a long long time.

[TC @ Jan 6th 2006 10:35AM]

#4 I'm not sure you could use this to backup your data - it looks like it's just ROM at the moment without write/rewrite abilities. Anyone know when a burner (for consumers) is coming out?

[Seth @ Jan 6th 2006 10:40AM]

Here's an overview of the technology with a cute little "tour" link at the end of it.



http://www.inphase-technologies.com/technology/index.html

[Stu L Tissimus @ Jan 6th 2006 10:44AM]

Any word on price? Was it shown working at CES?

[Scott @ Jan 6th 2006 10:51AM]

Jacob, this would be the FIRST generation, look how far burn/write capictities have come in the realm of data discs.



I expect them to reach half-gig transfer rates within a year of being launched

[Nick @ Jan 6th 2006 10:53AM]

Outstanding.



Holographic technology is really the ideal sucessor to magnetic and standard optical storage technology. Magnetic disks are starting to become so 90's, and even the next generation of optical (BluRay and HDDVD) are just pushing the envelope of yesterday's optical technology.



Holographic opens the doors for MUCH higher transfer rates and near infinite storage capacity as time goes on.



I will definately be an early adopter.

[sdsdv10 @ Jan 6th 2006 11:31AM]

#7



LTO3 tape drives run $4k-$5K and are only SCSI or fiber optic interface, not really home friendly technology. Hopefully, they can bring these units in quite a bit cheaper and with a desktop compatible interface.

[borg359 @ Jan 6th 2006 11:53AM]

InPhase has long been a king of vaporware. I'll believe it when I see it.

[Richard @ Jan 6th 2006 12:07PM]

What was the rationale for breaking with the current standard of 120 mm optical discs?

[morcheeba @ Jan 6th 2006 1:04PM]

#8 - This is WORM - write once, read many, like a CD-R. They are considering a rewriteable version later, but their primary focus will be for industrial-grade backups. The chemistry they use is stable, so these are archival (~50 yrs); there is no aluminum to oxidize or magnetic particles to flake off.

#13 - They have good funding and lots of brains.

#14 - They use the MO form factor so that they can use existing changers. This will still fit in a 5 1/4" drive bay.

[Ben @ Jan 6th 2006 4:38PM]

So cool, this has the ablity to just crush both "main-stream" competitors in the upcoming format war!

[j @ Jan 6th 2006 4:58PM]

It will be slow but having a complete backup of your entire Hard Drive is a necessity for most (like me). I would love to back up all my stuff and start clean. It would be a breath of fresh air. All the media on one single disk. Lets hope for commercially available and price drops. This could blow away blue ray and HD

[evo @ Jan 6th 2006 9:14PM]

What's the point? I don't want yet another storage format that spins, rotates, yaws, translates, or otherwise relies on physical motion. That's so last millenium. The promise of holographic storage is that I can plug a pure, gleaming crystal of molecule-sized bits into my machine and never have to worry about spindles wearing out, head crashes, or any other sort of momentum-based malfunction.

[Q Manning @ Jan 6th 2006 9:26PM]

I froth at the mouth for this, I swear. Give me this technology. Now.

[JP @ Jan 7th 2006 2:22AM]

#18 To take advantage of any optical technology, something will have to move, or the sensor will have to be so big it is prohibitively expensive. This relies on low speed rotation, which will improve stability. And, things will always wear out. if not physically then electrically. There is no getting around that aspect of physics and the computer industry.

[RL @ Jan 7th 2006 12:14PM]

With these brand new high end options, media can be very expensive. It would not surprise me to see it top the $1 / GB mark when it is first sold.



I know many people who are backing up onto harddrives for various reasons. A 300GB hard drive can be had for under $200 at the moment and isn't a lot bigger than the media these guys offer. And a 300GB hard drive is much much faster.



Using an external SATA connector and simply hanging a power connector out the back of my machine, I've made it possible to use drives sold for internal use as backup drives.



This is a neat technology for people that don't like hacks, but there are better ways to go in terms of performance.



I'd like to see a general standard for hot plugging drives designed for internal use into a chassis through access panels in the front so that nobody has to open a chassis to replace a hard drive. This could be done with little more than adjustment of pin lengths in the back, a slight change of connector style, and a slightly more robust case around the drive. Then, nobody would have to pay the premium for an external chassis to have portable hard drives, hard drive sales would likely increase due to the extra ease of replacing them, and hard drives could become the leading choice for backup.

[saq @ Jan 7th 2006 2:29PM]

I'd like to see a general standard for hot plugging drives designed for internal use into a chassis through access panels in the front so that nobody has to open a chassis to replace a hard drive. This could be done with little more than adjustment of pin lengths in the back, a slight change of connector style, and a slightly more robust case around the drive.



You mean like SCA or even newer SAS which has been around for a decade and is used far more often than IDE drives?

[Ray Morris @ Jan 7th 2006 4:38PM]

"bring on holographic storage as HDD replacement" Amen!!!



Both Blu-Ray & HD-DVD are such a waste. Though very expensive holographic storage is coming out this June, prices will drop and before you know it and.....



I just hope when it comes out, Sony or any one won't come up with a second way of storage making this one into a 'format wars'.



Another proof 95% or so of the general public won't ever waste money on HD-discs of any format.. When was the last time any one went to a movie theatre and said, "Wow! Look at that beautiful 70mm movie image!"



Most movies are still recorded on 35mm film, but 70mm offers by far, a much better image than HD-DVD does over standard DVDs. Simple basic math... Divide a 35mm frame into 720 x 480 units (pixels). 70mm film has 4 times the area of 35mm so that gives 2880 x 1920 units (pixels), much more than HD is presently offering!



Be very leary of any one who claims they see a 'big difference' in DVD formats. Rather, be wise, compare for yourself, that's the best and only way!



Our Home Theatre set up projects a 12' screen with standard DVDs and it is easily as sharp and clear as anything you see in a genuine for-real Movie theatre. The people who visit my home unanamously agree!

That's without HD!

[dennis @ Jan 8th 2006 11:14AM]

if they keep reinventing the wheel im going to choke me a scientist

[Storm @ Jan 10th 2006 7:33PM]

"Simple basic math... Divide a 35mm frame into 720 x 480 units (pixels). 70mm film has 4 times the area of 35mm so that gives 2880 x 1920 units (pixels), much more than HD is presently offering!"



Actually what you did was 16 times the area, 4 wider and 4 taller. Simple basic math. If you are doubling the width and height of 35 to 70 you obviously only double the width and height of your digital res, hence 1440x960. 1080p is higher.

But yea, I don't think film goes by pixels anyways.

[Chris @ Jan 11th 2006 9:28AM]

LTO3? you got to be kidding. it's an overgrown cassette tape! you may get high speed writes, but if you ever want to read it again it'll take you ages to get the data off.



hey can you get me a file off the 1/6/2004 archive?

sure, i'll let you know in an hour or 2 after it restores off tape



Tapestry will be random access, just like any other spinning disk media, so you can actualy use it as a fequent-access offline storage system.



hey can you get me a file off the 1/6/2004 archive?

sure, done.



which would you rather do?