A holographic disk is a form of data storage

Data storage device

thumb|200px|right|A reel-to-reel tape recorder .The magnetic tape is a data storage medium. The recorder is data storage equipment using a portable medium to store the data....

 designed for computer

Computer

A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...

s, created by InPhase Technologies

InPhase Technologies

InPhase Technologies is a technology company developing holographic storage devices and media. InPhase was spun out from Bell Labs in 2000. Their technology eventually promises multiple terabyte storage. In May 2008 the company was due to release their first reader, tapestry 300r, offering a...

. The smaller holographic drives can store thirty times the information of a Blu-ray Disc

Blu-ray Disc

Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...

.

Holographic drives store information in a manner different from normal DVD drives. While DVDs hold information on the surface or just below the surface, holographic drives pack data

Data

The term data refers to qualitative or quantitative attributes of a variable or set of variables. Data are typically the results of measurements and can be the basis of graphs, images, or observations of a set of variables. Data are often viewed as the lowest level of abstraction from which...

 in a gel

Gel

A gel is a solid, jelly-like material that can have properties ranging from soft and weak to hard and tough. Gels are defined as a substantially dilute cross-linked system, which exhibits no flow when in the steady-state...

, using a pair of laser

Laser

A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of photons. The term "laser" originated as an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation...

 beams that cross through the entirety of the gel. A single pulse can etch one million bit

Bit

A bit is the basic unit of information in computing and telecommunications; it is the amount of information stored by a digital device or other physical system that exists in one of two possible distinct states...

s, which is four times the write speed of Blu-ray and HD DVD

HD DVD

HD DVD is a discontinued high-density optical disc format for storing data and high-definition video.Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the standard DVD format...

 drives. The gel is durable enough to last for 50 years. Professional archiving disks created by Maxwell

Maxwell Technologies

Maxwell Technologies is a developer and manufacturer of energy storage and power delivery-related products.-History:The company was founded in 1965 as Maxwell Laboratories, originally as a government contractor, providing advanced physics, pulsed power, space effects analysis and other research and...

 can hold 300 gigabyte

Gigabyte

The gigabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage. The prefix giga means 109 in the International System of Units , therefore 1 gigabyte is...

s of memory.

Consumer versions are expected to be released, holding 1.6 terabyte

Terabyte

The terabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The prefix tera means 1012 in the International System of Units , and therefore 1 terabyte is , or 1 trillion bytes, or 1000 gigabytes. 1 terabyte in binary prefixes is 0.9095 tebibytes, or 931.32 gibibytes...

s of information, and the upper expectation is that holographic drives will be capable of holding 100 terabytes of information.

Technical Comparison

Data Disk	Capacity	Writing Speed
Holographic Disk	300 GB	960 Mbit/s.
Blu-ray Disc Blu-ray Disc Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...	100 GB	36 Mbit/s.
HD DVD HD DVD HD DVD is a discontinued high-density optical disc format for storing data and high-definition video.Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the standard DVD format...	30 GB	36 Mbit/s.
DVD DVD A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....	8.5 GB	27 Mbit/s.
CD	0.7 GB	7.9 Mbit/s.