Ecma International has achieved its goal. That is, two new standards for dramatically increased optical storage density – Holographic Information Storage - that break through the density limits of conventional optical storage by recording through the full depth of the media instead of recording only on the surface.
The new standards approved on May 2, 2007 and published on June 11, 2007 are:
- ECMA-377 “Information Interchange on Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD) Recordable Cartridges – Capacity: 200 Gbytes per Cartridge” and
- ECMA-378 “Information Interchange on Read-Only Memory Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD-ROM) – Capacity: 100 Gbytes per disk”.
According to the standards one HVD can store upwards of 200 gigabytes of data, the equivalent of more than 40 of today’s DVDs, and that is just for starters. It is expected that future implementations will be able to store more than 1.3 terabytes. Additionally, unlike optical discs, which record one data bit at a time, HVDs allow over 10 kilobits of data to be written and read in parallel with a single flash of light – and the recording and reading processes do not require spinning media. Data transfer rates of up to 20 megabytes per second (far faster than DVDs) are easily achieved with rotating or translating media.
Press Release Source: ECMA.
