500GB 'DVD' unveiled

According to the BBC, General Electric has developed a DVD-sized optical storage disc that holds 500GB of data. Using 3D optics, instead of the "2D" pit method of writing/reading data, the discs, which hold more than ten times the data of the current highest-capacity Blu-ray discs are first being targeted at the "archive" market, but the fact the company is running with a storage medium that is the same size as traditional DVDs and CDs lets us know that they are eventually aiming at consumer markets.

In fact, the 500GB capacity of these disks places them at more than one hundred times the size of the writeable DVDs most of us use for backups. Technology editor Darren Waters says, "A single GE disc could be used to package up a library of high definition movies but is there pent-up consumer demand for such an offering?" But the question is a no-brainer for most of us. A quick and easy way to back up an entire hard drive, using one or a small number of these disks, will be good news for consumers with lots of photos and other media they have digitized.

These are micro-holographic discs, meaning that information is stored in three dimensions. As Brian Lawrence, head of GE's Holographic Storage, says, "Very recently, the team at GE has made dramatic improvements in the materials enabling significant increases in the amount of light that can be reflected by the holograms."

The fact that GE will be using the same basic size for these new optical media means a big benefit for consumers in terms of backwards compatibility: "The hardware and formats are so similar to current optical storage technology that the micro-holographic players will enable consumers to play back their CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs [on the same machine]." GE is cautious, however, given the relatively poor take-up of Bluray, but they are thinking about the future.

Lawrence concludes, "The hardware and formats are so similar to current optical storage technology that the micro-holographic players will enable consumers to play back their CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs [as well as the new media]." The big challenges for GE now are to get the hardware manufactures on board and to convince consumers of the benefits of such high-storage capacity. The road ahead is long, but, if we think back to the shift from CD to DVD as a means of optical storage, there is a precedent, and the consumer desire for larger and larger amounts of data storage seems to be insatiable.