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News GE claims holographic data breakthrough

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by CardJoe, 28 Apr 2009.

  1. CardJoe

    CardJoe Freelance Journalist

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  2. p3n

    p3n What's a Dremel?

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    Who needs a disc that large? I certainly don't trust optical discs as 'backups' as they can be easily damaged/ seem to wear out over time (RIP jackass season 1) - Will be interesting to see if these discs are a tad more resilient.
     
  3. Journeyer

    Journeyer Minimodder

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    I agree with p3n in the sense that spinning optical media will always be at risk from wear and tear, and plain old maltreatment. However, this would obviously only be the first generation of holographic storage devices, and as such it is my firm belief that next-gen devices will not be built around spinning mediums. I'm still awaiting the Babylon 5-esque crystal storage devices, which in principle is the same thing.
     
  4. johnnyboy700

    johnnyboy700 Minimodder

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    Hang on, didn't the HAL 9000 from 2001 use holographic storage?

    Life imitating art again?
     
  5. Paradigm Shifter

    Paradigm Shifter de nihilo nihil fit

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    Sort of a holographic SSD? :D

    Yeah, the capacity of holographic discs, with the resilience of solid state media.

    Do want. :D

    More storage is always a good thing... but 500GB... if the data read/write rates haven't improved a lot, writing 500GB will take forever. Two things stop me from using Blu-ray as a secondary backup medium - the cost of the discs (the writer drives themselves aren't too bad - about half the price of my first CD writer) and the fact that they write so slowly. :(
     
  6. Yemerich

    Yemerich I can has PERSUADETRON?

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    @Paradigm: Agreed

    But backwards compatible? this seems folklore to me...
     
  7. Burnout21

    Burnout21 Mmmm biscuits

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    I actually want this capacity 500GB disc, yeah i would invest them, even 1TB.

    I could backup my HDD's and archive them each month or every two months. Ghosting the whole drive.

    When you backup all your DVD's on HDD, plus hunderds of CD's and then loose it all, there is nothing worse than doing it all again!

    Something to which i might be faced to have to do! :wallbash:


    Also now HD-DVD and blue offer, loseless audio, maybe the video wont be compressed down to 1080p, allowing a much closer res to that of 35mm film which the films are shot on. This would then lead to what i would call true HD, 1080p is still too small! Newer flat panels, or projectors. Cinema quality, but digital! yay!
     
  8. Paradigm Shifter

    Paradigm Shifter de nihilo nihil fit

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    I shudder to think how much the film industry will want to charge for totally uncompressed audio and video on discs for films. The price premium on Blu-ray is already significant, and HD-DVD wasn't exactly cheap. My local Comet is still trying to sell off the HD-DVD drives for the XBox 360 and HD-DVD films... they want £150 for the drive and £35 a film! At least, they did just before Easter. They might have pulled them now.
     
  9. brave758

    brave758 Minimodder

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    Looking forward to seeing them. Man the speed this stuff is moving now is scary
     
  10. Jordan Wise

    Jordan Wise Baby called to see the boss...

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    Yeah, and we all know how well that turned out
     
  11. Omnituens

    Omnituens What's a Dremel?

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    Holographic storage was also used in the backstory to the MMO Neocron.... that didn't turn out well either.

    DESTROY IT BEFORE IT DESTROYS US!
     
  12. StephenK

    StephenK Sneak 'em Upper

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    Who needs this much space on a disc?

    'The world will only need 5 computers' 'Nobody will ever need more than 128k of memory' ' Etc etc.

    Perhaps we don't need this much space on a disc at this point in time but that's really not the point.

    Optical media are indeed subject to wear and tear and mistreatment but so are all other physical forms of storage. Perhaps the optical discs can be made less prone to scratching,etc. Either way, you just make sure to back them up every few years. Or, more likely, you back up for 8 year old 1TB holodiscs onto newer 200TB cubes or 500TB wafers or whatever.
     
  13. perplekks45

    perplekks45 LIKE AN ANIMAL!

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    I don't know why we wouldn't welcome this.
    I totally agree with StephenK: We might not need it today, but what about in 10 years? 20? 50? 100? Seeing how fast HDDs grew in size within the last 5 years I wouldn't say 500GB is OTT.

    Also, about the uncompressed movie thing: What about some Super Hi-Vision/Ultra-HD @ 7680 × 4320 pixel?

    Size comparison:
    [​IMG]

    FullHD is the little turquoise thing in the top left while UHD is "big blue".
     
  14. thehippoz

    thehippoz What's a Dremel?

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    I would like to see fast 1TB flash sticks someday for regular backups.. with 1tb usb harddrives going for under a hundred bucks, thats the way to go currently.. this would be nice for media archives though, store it in a dark place.. it looks like thats what they're targeting first

    the 1tb harddrive for weekly and these disks for permanent storage would be a very nice setup to have.. only downside is like was mentioned.. what if you scratched one of these discs and it held important data on it- roid rages
     
  15. knutjb

    knutjb What's a Dremel?

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    I think it's brilliant. The ability to store that much on a small plastic disc is amazing. Can they make it bigger and cheaper with fast transfer rates before its' old tech? If it's the same size as a cd/dvd/bluray backward compatibility is pretty easy but it's a moot point if there is an equally large or larger capacity that comes in a physically smaller/more convenient platform. Perhaps they can make it in a different shape or size...
     
  16. perplekks45

    perplekks45 LIKE AN ANIMAL!

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    Backwards compatibility is not pretty easy just because it's the same size/format. The process behind it is pretty different, actually. :p
     
  17. Spaceraver

    Spaceraver Ultralurker

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    And que the external harddrive for backup folks.. If you are so worried about your data you would be running raid 5 with some external drives to go with it anyways.. almost nothing beats the hdd for storage capacity and the amount of read writes it can endure.
     
  18. Paradigm Shifter

    Paradigm Shifter de nihilo nihil fit

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    That is certainly true - but the Blu-ray drive I had in a laptop had two different lenses - one for reading Blu-ray and one for reading CD/DVD. Chances are the 'backwards compatibility' would be something like that.

    If, on the other hand, they made these holographic discs... I dunno, square, or mini-CD sized... or changed the size of the spindle hole, or tripled the thickness of the discs... backwards compatibility would go right out the window. ;)
     
  19. Vimesey

    Vimesey What's a Dremel?

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    See that's where the exciting potential lies, if we don't need 500GB, you could fit a Blu-Ray disk level of capacity on a tiny format. Which would be amazing for netbooks etc.
     
  20. perplekks45

    perplekks45 LIKE AN ANIMAL!

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    And... you have a point. :thumb: :)
     
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