General Electric has invented a storage format that can hold 461,373,440 kilobytes of data, the equivalent of almost 330,000 high-density (HD) floppy diskettes.
The storage advance, which G.E. is announcing on Monday, is just a laboratory success at this stage. The new technology must be made to work in products that can be mass-produced at affordable prices.
But optical storage experts and industry analysts who were told of the development said it held the promise of being a big step forward in digital storage with a wide range of potential uses in commercial, scientific and consumer markets.
So, in 5 years, we could all be buying 440GB optical disks. Yay!
It’s a nice thought, but when I can already buy a 500GB external hard drive for $50 and my internet connection can download a DVD in a couple of hours, why the breathless hype? This sort of thing is doomed to niche archival use.
Source [NYT]
One thing I know I would like is for them to be able to put entire TV series collections on a single disk. Though shouldn’t we be looking to something other than an optical based storage solution? I for one prefer less moving parts.
Other than that my enthusiasm level is pretty low. Maybe it’s just that I’m jaded from re-buying my favorite movies or music every time a new format comes out.
BAH, there’s a new of these every month or so and then promptly dissolves in to the vapour ware ether that it is.
It’s not worth anything unless it’s widely available and widely supported.
Parameters that I need to make these sorts of relevancy / utility decisions:
What’s the MTBF on that 500GB external HD? What will it be likely to be for a new unit when these discs reach market?
Does the contained data ever need to be updated?
What’s the economic cost of an optical disk versus a magnetic/RAM storage?
What’s the carbon footprint?
Scratch resistance?
Market where broadband has not penetrated?
How many hours does it take to make a full write to media?
Does it simplify HIPAA compliance if used for transmitting copies of medical records? Can it be HIPAA certified?
Would there by patent collision with the holographic storage techniques announced by the European Media Laboratory in 2000 where they stored 10GB on a roll of adhesive tape – ?
Finally! brb gotta cancel that order for 3 pallets of floppies.
440GB Optical discs burned at 2x = it might be done before the end of the century
In 5 years nobody will be buying disks anymore.
Isn’t the standard unit of large sized storage copies of the Encyclopedia Britannica?
What ever happened to the 1TB FMD-ROM from years ago?
@Trent Hawkins – “the vapour ware ether that it is”
I think you just coined a phrase.
On this tech, I sort of wonder when it could be financially viable to put that much data in one place. If it is locked into a DVR that is one thing but if this is mobile then I really don’t need several k in tech and data in my pocket waiting to get dropped.
Why is the capacity expressed in terms of number of Floppy Disks?
Because it’s intrinsically obsolete. IT’S A JOKE, LAUGH!
I prefer to see data storage measured in pounds of punchcards.
“In 5 years nobody will be buying disks anymore.”
Ha ha! Added to list of quotes people will be laughing at in five years.
330,000 high-density (HD) floppy diskettes?
How much is that in 10 inch SD floppies?
Punch cards?
Wax cylinders?
Square meters of cave wall?
Optical storage is worthless for serious archives. The discs don’t last long enough.
I’d thank you to separate “doomed” and “niche” from “archival use”. archives, archivists and their important work are marginilized enough as is.
Sorry, could I get that in number of songs?
The answer is one song. But what a song!
Gilbert Anonymous here:
< <#14 posted by Bloodboiler, April 27, 2009 11:00 AM
330,000 high-density (HD) floppy diskettes?
How much is that in 10 inch SD floppies?
Punch cards?
Wax cylinders?
Square meters of cave wall?>>
You left off cuneiform tablets and papyrus scrolls.
Hey–were smoke signals a form of texting?
I guess we now know which department the completely out of touch marketing types end up in at GE
The seldom-heard extra-long version of In A Gadda Da Vida?
My thought exactly. Those fluorescent optical disc media have been vaporware for about a decade.
Meanwhile, people are just buying hard drives instead of discs at all.
These days I’m just hanging on to the hope that the next computer bus to be implemented after PCI Express will be 10GigE. It’s been “promised”, but will it be delivered?
How much does the media cost?
Since I am apparently older than you lot put together, (sigh) I will tell you a ghost story.
In 1992, the World Wide Web was in beta. (yes, really) I had an internet account through my University that allowed me to use FTP, telnet, and gopher.
I used it mainly for text-based MMOs called MOOs and MUDs, and connecting to proto-forums at variously-located dial-up amateur servers called BBS (Bulletin Board System)
One day I read some tech news on a BBS (it only took five minutes to download a dozen posts, but it *was* clear outside and 3AM) that IBM was developing a new ‘holographic cube’ storage technology, with a huge but unspecified size. How exciting!
Fast forward 5 years. It’s 1997, the web is established if not mature, broadband is available at least in big cities, and IBM updates the story: (bless the archivist bureaucracy — the page is STILL THERE today!)
The technology might be able to hold a BILLION bytes!
Still not out, and my antiquated magnetic hard drive is about that size, and cheap besides.
Plus ce change…
I can have my own personal copy of the internet. Finally!
Could you please supply a link towards this awesome technology? Sounds like I need to do some investing!
@24
GhostTiger is refering to this ibm write up, the only evidence she found of the earlier work into tha cube. –> http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/pr.nsf/pages/rsc.holo.html
man the crap she finds surfin around at 3 in the morning.
and wha? IBM keeps there pages up on vapourware how long?
(I post it for convience for her)
Somehow, I picture this 440 GB optical disc hanging from the rear view mirror of a beat up Chevy Cavalier, along with a garter belt, large fuzzy dice, and other bling that obscures and distracts.
@24 oh wait.. I finally get good numbers on a ibm page from the first ibm page, although the article mentions disck drives more than holocubes –> http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/wwwr_thinkresearch.nsf/pages/storage297.html
in it, it claims:
Up to 10,000 pages have been stored in a single cube of recording material one centimeter on a side. Each page contains one megabit of information, which means that the cube can store about 10 gigabits.
uhm.. that equals a gig. damn. my 32gig sd beats that. now I’m sad
can i have a 100gb disc, that fits into my pocket? CDs/DVDs were always too big.
fdfgfd