InPhase to finally ship Tapestry 300r holographic storage solution in May
Talk about escaping the label of vaporware by this much. We've been hearing that holographic storage was right around the bend from InPhase for well over three years now, but it has finally managed to get its ducks in a row and should start shipping the unicorn-like Tapestry 300r next month. The firm had a demonstrative version on display at NAB Show earlier this month, and apparently real live working units will be making their way out to archival junkies in just weeks. Granted, it will demand a whopping $18,000 to get a shipping label made with your address on it, and each piece of 300GB media is $180 -- but hey, that's the price you pay these days to know that you'll decompose before your data degrades.
[Via The Register]
[Via The Register]



















300gb? I thought these things came in the terrabytes?
try again in 5 years
Oh Great - another FORMAT WAR.
Once everyone has Blu Ray disks, they won't feel that upgrading to Terrabyte Holographic discs is neccessary, unless they want to get the most out of their Ultra High Definition Televisions.
Fortunately, Playstation 4 will be the cheapest HG-DVD player around at a smooth $800.
They're going to work up to terabytes over the next few generations. As the technology improves they should be able to achieve some impressive capacities.
However, I don't see why anyone would buy this product now. Think about it: the cost for this is $18000 + $180 per 300GB...why would anyone spend that when you can pick up a 500GB hard drive for £40? I'm not sure what the retention time of a hard drive is, but it can't be far off 50 years when used for archive. Not only are HDs cheaper, but they've got better R/W times too.
Exactly who is this product aimed at?
@ j_g_puff "Think about it: the cost for this is $18000 + $180 per 300GB...why would anyone spend that when you can pick up a 500GB hard drive for £40?"
Because hard drives fail. And so do you.
@Alexander
For $180 I could raid 5 your ass..then use the change to raid 1 your mother's ass.
Plus, hard drive failure rates are well known. These disks have a great big ? when it comes to real-world failures, and when it's reliability that gets you hot, a ? is the last thing you want.
puff...RAID is NOT a backup solution.
Jesse: why not?
If anyone wants to suggest hard drives as a backup solution have a listen to my three week old RAID array...
*ch-chunk ch-chunk ch-chunk*
Yeah... it still reads but a fair bit slower when it's clunking like that, I have RMA'ed them and waiting for the pickup, but it demonstrates quite well why you shouldn't trust HDDs for archives and backup :)
w00t:
If the manufacturer had burnt them in properly the dodgy ones wouldn't get passed on to you. Or me for that matter - i've lost 2 disks in the last 3 years.
I still don't see why they can't be used for archive though. Get a few well-made (and well burnt-in) disks and use a parity scheme across a few of them. They only need to run for a few weeks while you back up, then they can be stashed offsite until they're needed. Of course they're probably bulkier and more expensive than things like DLT, but certainly less than holographic (for the next few years at least).
Why would anyone buy one of these? It's ludicrous. If you are a serious business or government, tape backup makes 1000 times more sense than this.
If you're a consumer, use frickin hard drives. Redundancy is the key. Make multiple backups, and put the disk back in the anti-static bag. In 5 years you'll be able to store a lot more than 300GB on your Mozy or .mac account.
$18,000 seems a bit steep, but for people who need it VERY worth it, im guessing that the main buyer will be the Government.
Still, if i could i'd get one.
Anyone know how fast would it transfer at.
noone even knows how this thing works let alone what speed it operates at
sorry.. reads and writes at 20mbps
@AutoTom,
OK, thanks for that, but why would they announce the release of a product when it doesn't even know if it works.
he didn't say it didn't work, idiot.
ok i give up everyone please READ THE F*NG ARTICLE
Wow, calm down there honey, i read the article, but i was watching Two and a Half Men at the time, and i was distracted.
Keep your pants on.
i... love you
I know honey, cya tonight
Here are some news I got from a trusted source:
1. The wealthier you are the cheaper this thing seems.
2. It looks like a 1.4MB Floppy Disk, but bigger.
3. It can talk.
4. It has a multi integrated nano weaponry system.
5. It is made of Holodyoum.
6. Strangely enough, it doesn't cause cancer!
7. It produces food.
8. Produced under Dubai standards.
9. If you use it well, you might finally meet a real unicorn. (Make sure to stand under it when it is falling).
Uhm. Thanks but no thanks. I'd rather buy a bunch of 2.5 inch external firewire compatible harddrives.
ok, well if you arent gonna buy it they might aswell stop making em.
After what you said Homeboy, life now has no meaning.
"you'll decompose before your data degrades."
Isn't this what they said about the early CDs? Evidence please!
Can someone who is alive in about 50 years and who is still using one of these things please post an update!
On the other hand they may actually be right, but I'll be happy enough with just 10 years.
On another note, when they were first talking about these things and how much storage they were going to deliver, I was seriously impressed.
Fast forward to now, and they have delivered exactly what they said they would - around 300 GB ... and nobody is really impressed. Least of all my current hard drive.
As Crocodile Dundee would have said:
Call that a drive? ... 300 Petabytes ... now thats what you call a holographic drive!
I have CD's from the 80s that are still fine.
Sorry, Jesse, but I call BS. Everyone knows electricity wasn't around in the 80s.
Jesse: of course you have manufactured CDs that are fine. But do you have any CDRs that are more than 10 years old? I only have a couple left. The top of the CDRs started flaking off years ago.
Didn't anyone learn anything from Zip Disks?
No, no they did not.
I'd imagine physical media would go in the future where we'd all pull data from some mainframe with your own unlimited space, rent on a yearly basis, a bit like security boxes from the bank. With fast wireless download/upload who need to find a safe place to file the media?? Like someone said, haven't anyone learnt from Zip Discs?
Oh the promises of the future... Storing all of my sensitive information on a mainframe along with everyone else's. Can't wait.
Here are my backup precautions:
Fire = Blu-Ray in a fire-proof safe
Failed HDD = 2 redundant external backups
Burglars who steal my PC, safe and external drives = .357 Magnum
The future is now!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?node=16427261
The Cadet said "$18,000 seems a bit steep..."
Finalist for understatement of the year.
I shall think of my acceptance speech now.
Thank you (insert name)
thank you very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very,
very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very much.
Thats just the beginning
(The Office joke)
(Dwight Series 2)
I feel better knowing the Feds will have my intercepted personal emails archived safely for the next 500 years.
50 years.. please rtfa
Thanks for being on top of things there, guy.
@OX4
...You're not my Guy, fwend!
I can haz rec0n?
Shit, sorry everyone, I'm on firefox and was tab swapping too fast. That comment was supposed to be posted on the bungie forums.
As you were.
even still.. why are you spamming bungie forums with posts like that?
@AutoTom
Is your life about making other people lives hard. Calm down, just because someone added an extra 0 doesnt me you have to go and tell them to Read the Fu*king article.
God. take a f***ing chill pill.
(Mind my french)
Who would have thought that that lack of a /joke tab could ahve led to so much confusion!
i just Lol'ed
Then I have acheived my purpose.
Here, take this +1 for my gratitude.
@Esat, Im up to 7 +7's for now
I wasn't actually... i was only jo...
I don't know. I just don't know.
300GB – 1.6TB Capacities
20MB/s-120 MB/s transfer rate and milliseconds data access time
50 year media archive life
...
They have a little work to do...
Today's special for only $18000 tomorrows technology with yesterdays case design!
seriously it looks like they had Dull design it and reused some dreamweaver box art from the 90's. Evidently they thought the technology would sell itself though i guess its prettier than the cardboard box I live in.