Yep because there really are movies or games out there that require more than 200Gb of space on a disc....

Fail....

Dammit, people! Thi is not about killing off blu-ray! Holographic storage technology is important because of its rewritability just as much as its storage capacity! This isn't about watching movies or playing games, it's about the technology that could replace hard drives.

This ain't going to replace harddrives either.

Hardrives are getting replaced by solid state drives for obvious performance and reliability issues.

The only application I really see for this is mass storage...

I doubt this matters to BR right now. Particularly with the current economy new tech like this is going to be shoved even further back.

Most people still have DVDs and are slowly adopting BR, studios have adopted BR and are ramping up on the format - the entertainment market isn't going to consider any new tech for many years yet: another move would simply be too costly.

This will come in as niche and then industrial uses, with entertainment coming last I'd have thought and probably when BR is sun-setting.

That's how I figure it anyway.

Old and posted more than 2,4 exp 10000000000000

Solid state drives (AKA high-content flash storage) are far less reliable and far, FAR less time-proof than holographic storage. Holographic storage is a concept proven to be usable decades past write-date. Hard-drives become corrupt FAR before then, and flash memory isn't much more reliable than that.

And frankly, ALL the major technology manufacturers are researching Holographic storage. This isn't just something that a few small companies are researching. EVERYBODY has a stake in this stuff. GE is a huge company, and one of the most valuable American companies period. They're enormous. This isn't just "some goofy company putting some money into a random tech to try taking some marketshare". This IS very possibly the way of the future.

Quit with the stubborn opinions, guys, and pay attention to the facts. This is a MAJOR piece of technology they're working on, and something that could replace 50+ years of magnetic storage.

Im surprised that theyre pushing more optical media in time where digital distribution is becoming the more chosen path.

That said, that level of storage, from many viewpoints, may make a dent in Blu Ray, as people who find out about it might opt out, since the next "big thing" is on the horizon. Yet, this is techhie news, only techs and game nerds are going to know about it. Joe Schmo wont know about it.

You're just making the argument to use it for mass storage.

People that want improved PC performances are going for solid state drives ( business or gamers).

Maybe in 10 years from now my whole PC will get a backup every night to an holographic media storage but day to day it will run on a solid state drive....

It won't  replace hard drives. People are not going to pay more to get the same size and read/write speeds, even if holographic shows more future promise.

The only format to overtake hard drives at the moment will be Atomic holographic nanostorage devices.

The device stores data in a complete 3D format, allowing up to 1.6 Petabytes of information per cubic CM. The first sets are supposed to ship with the volume of a cubic cm or more. Meaning around 1-1.5 ml thick or writing space. Now not only is it super massive storage, nearly 1.6 MILLION gigabytes per disc, it's read and write speeds are near 400,000 times the fastest hard drives on the market.  These are supposed to ship in 2012 for 750$ per drive, 1 drive could replace whole hard drive server farms which take up whole warehouses, which costs so much to run and maintence, by 1 drive.

This will finally allow drives to have complete uncompressed data, as well as the technology can be put forward into idea such as ram etc.