History (1999): Lucent and Imation to Develop 125GB Per Holographic Disk

We’ve heard so much about holography, and for so long, this 3D technology that will boost storage capacities exponentially, that we’ve ended up almost not believing in it anymore.

But you never know, and for once, the 2 firms involved in this new technology are not the last to arrive: Lucent Technologies and Imation. We’re talking about storing no less than 125GB of user data on a removable 5.25- inch disk for starters.

“The transfer rate would be equivalent to 27x faster than that of DVD,” according to both companies.

In other words, close to 30MB/s.

“Future gens of devices are expected to store around 1TB on a single disk with about ISO times the transfer rates of current DVDs,” added Alastair Glass, director of Bell Labs photonics research lab.

The basic research came from Bell Labs, the R&D arm of Lucent. Imation has signed an agreement with Lucent to work jointly with Bell Labs to develop the holographic disks.

“The commercialization of holographic storage is possible,” they affirmed.

When? “As quickly as possible.”

We’ll see. Note, incidentally, that Lucent recently sold a license for technologies relating to technologies relating to extremely high-density disks to the California start-up Siros Technologies, and, among Siros’ directors are eminent specialists of holography.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 140 on September 1999 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.