MURRAY HILL, N.J., Aug. 12 -- Lucent Technologies and Imation Corp. have agreed to collaborate on developing proprietary holographic data storage technology for the enterprise storage market. Recent research advances indicate that first generation drives may have the potential to store 125 gigabytes of user data on a removable 5.25-inch disk. This single disk would have storage capacity equivalent to that of 27 of today's 4.7 gigabyte digital versatile disks (DVDs). The rate of data transfer is expected to be about 25 times faster than that of DVD.
With this capacity, the information in a typical large university library could be stored on about 10 holographic disks, said Alastair Glass, director of the Bell Labs Photonics Research Lab. Future generations of devices are expected to store around a terabyte on a single disk with about 150 times the transfer rates of current DVDs. Steve Socolof, vice president of Lucent New Ventures Group, noted, This joint development agreement is another example of how we seek strong partners to help us commercialize Bell Labs technology beyond Lucent's core businesses.