Despite the revolutionary increases in storage capacity in recent years,there’s just never enough, is there?

Just when we thought that Blu-ray discs have outdone DVDs and are here to stay for a while, we hear more and more about a new disc material which will allow ridiculous amounts of information (perhaps 20 times as much as Blu-ray discs) to be stored on a disc, holographically. Storing data holographically requires two light sources, and it works by altering the physical structure of the disc where the two laser beams meet. Essentially you run one laser across the material, and one through its depth, flashing the lasers to fuse the material in specific spots.

The one distinct advantage holographic discs hold over conventional discs is this. If you slightly scratch the disc, the data shouldn’t be compromised, since information about individual parts of the hologram are stored throughout the optical pattern.

But this is still very much experimental. The market is not initially the common consumer, but enterprises with very large storage needs. Moreover, Holographic drives are expected to initially cost around US $15000. But obviously, large scale consumer applications will eventually drive the prices down and Blu-ray discs will go the way DVDs have gone.

via RSC/ New Scientist