New progress in three-dimensional storage technology

An American company has set a record of storage density when recording a capacity of 515 GB of data on a square inch.

InPhase Technologies said it has achieved this record thanks to a drive using holographic technology. This storage technology promises much higher storage capacity than traditional magnetic storage media.

The company says the new storage technology will help create holographic discs that can store up to 100 high-definition movies.

InPhase hopes they will announce the first holographic drive later this year with products up to 1.6 terabytes (1 terabyte equal to 1,024 gigabytes).

Holographic storage technology uses a three-dimensional image created by lasers to store information. This idea has been around for decades, but this optical storage technology has only been possible in the last few years.

InPhase technology director Kevin Curits said previous tests, conducted in April 2005, have only achieved a storage density of about 200 GB per square inch.

Compared to disks using magnetic technology, such as plates in today's hard drives, the density on these plates is only about 37.5Gb per square inch.

" We are excited by this pace of development. The latest results from our tests of three-dimensional data density have exceeded expectations, " said Kevin.

InPhase said that holographic storage technology will help store larger amounts of data on smaller disk areas. InPhase's first generation of drives will have a capacity of about 300 GB on a single disk.

" This new storage technology will be a technology that has the potential to replace existing technologies in meeting data storage needs, " said Wolfgang Schilichting of IDC.