300 Gb Holographic-Memory Discs Coming in 2006

New Scientist reports that a new type of computer disc that stores 300 gigabytes of data will be released in 2006 by InPhase Technologies and Hitachi Maxell. The discs, known as holographic-memory discs, store information through light interference and are written to with a single flash of light, allowing for very high data transfer rates compared to current discs. The discs are slightly wider and thicker than DVDs and will require new specialized drives for reading and writing. According New Science "the technique could theoretically be used to store up to 1.6 terabytes of data on the same size of disc and to read data at 120 megabits per second. This is 340 times the capacity of an ordinary DVD and 20 times the data rate."