500GB

As Blu-ray finally begins to gain traction on a wider scale, G.E. is again boasting of a physical disc storage breakthrough with the potential to hold 10 to 20 times more data than a Blu-ray disc and 100 times more data than a DVD. This isn’t the first time G.E. has spoken of its progress in holographic storage research but the New York Times is now reporting the company has made a new breakthrough. G.E.’s technology encodes holographic light patterns onto in a disc and packs data far more densely than the optical technology used by DVDs and Blu-ray discs. In fact, the technology in its current lab state is said to allow for up to 500GB of data storage on a single disc. For comparison, a Blu-ray disc holds 25 or 50GB and a DVD holds 5GB of data. The key to G.E.’s success with this technology of course, is making it affordable — other companies will be introducing holographic storage solutions as soon as this year. InPhase Technologies for example, will soon introduce a specialized holographic storage system geared towards the medical industry. InPhase’s solution however, requires expensive discs and readers that cost tens of thousands of dollars. G.E. plans to show off its work at a conference in Orlando in May, so perhaps some light will be shed on G.E.’s efforts in making the technology a bit more accessible.

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