Holographic optical disc breakthrough from GE

Holographic storage technology from General Electric will allow one standard-sized optical disc to hold 100 times more data than a DVD, the company claims.

These discs store data as three-dimensional images, encoded as patterns of light and stored on light-sensitive material. The New York Times explains that this storage method packs data more densely onto a single disc than any existing optical media format, storing up to 500 GB of data per disc.

We’ve heard about holographic discs for awhile now, so what’s new with this GE technology? The new tech uses smaller, more simple holograms in a process named microholographic storage. A recent breakthrough has allowed the GE team to increase the reflectivity of their holographic media by 200-fold. This reflectivity advancement has put their holographic discs in the light range that is readable by current Blu-ray players, possibly paving the way for future support of these discs in numerous consumer electronics devices.

"This could be the next generation of low-cost storage," Richard Doherty, an analyst at technology research firm Envisioneering, told the newspaper.

Indeed, cost will be a huge factor in determining whether GE can take this technology from laboratory to market. The company hopes to launch holographic discs in the next few years at a starting cost of 10 cents per gigabyte. That’s roughly 10 percent of the launch price for Blu-ray storage, but it still comes to $50 per disc at the high end of storage capacity. GE says the price will drop quickly after launch.

Beyond these concerns, the bigger question remains: Will optical media still have a place in computer storage a few years from now? The SD Association has already unveiled the SDXC generation of cards, which will eventually be able to store 2 TB of data on a single card. External hard drives with 1 TB of storage can be had now for just over $100, and portability for that capacity will only improve with time.

GE’s development paves a future for optical media, but it won’t be an easy road to travel.