Just when you thought that the 50GB storage you get from dual layer Blu-ray discs were overkill, wait until you get your hands on GE’s (General Electric) latest holographic discs. Two years ago, GE announced that it was developing a prototype form of storage that could store up to 500GB of data. And it looks like the company has managed to accomplish what it started.
Here’s an explanation of how the disc works:
The disc is a polycarbonate material with millions of the micro-holograms stamped onto the disc. When the light source—whose beam is the same wavelength as that of a Blu-ray drive— hits the disc, it erases the necessary amount of holograms to represent the data its recording. Theoretically, consumer drives in the future could be backwards compatible with the Blu-ray format.
Since physical medium is a dying breed – we’re moving towards a cloud-based future, discs are beginning to see less use, so you might be wondering if we really need such high capacity discs. Well, these special discs were designed for long term archival purposes. The disc is said to be able to keep data intact for a hundred years – which is a pretty long time to keep something.
No word on when these discs will become available to regular consumers, but we’re pretty sure they won’t catch on anytime soon, seeing how not everyone in the world even owns a Blu-ray drive, let alone writer at the moment.