Holographic Storage: The Future in Massive Storage - Essay Example

 Holographic Storage: The Future in Massive Storage It is the opinion of this that the need for higher density removable media for computer backup, imaging and record storage, high performance computing, multimedia computing, video servers, portable computers and consumer video is accelerating new technical developments and bringing them to the market. This paper covers the scope of holographic storage technology by describing its operation and applications. The technologies posing competition have also been discussed. In conclusion, the author opines that holographic storage technology would be implemented to ease storage of large amounts of information Holographic Storage: The Future in Massive Storage Focus Removable computer data storage devices have revolutionalised sharing of information across the globe. However, the capacity of data or information to be shared or transferred from one computer to another is always curtailed by the storage space available. For example, it is not possible to send very large email attachments due to the limited storage space provided by internet service providers. Furthermore, conventional storage devices such as optical discs and magnetic disks usually have limited capacity. It is worth noting that a lot of information in the world is stored and shared in electronic form. But due to the bulkiness of storage devices, it is always hard to transfer information from one place to another. Hard disks tend to have larger memory capacity in comparison to other storage media such as floppy disks, compact discs (CDs) digital versatile discs (DVDs), but the problem lies in their portability. This paper focuses on the problems facing the current forms of removable computer data storage media. Along this line, the paper focuses on holographic storage as an alternative form of storage. It therefore analyses how holographic storage works and how the technology could be used to solve the prevailing problem of mass storage in future. Introduction Many of the current removable computer storage devices that include magnetic media, optical media and flash disks have common limitations- they have relatively low storage capacities. For instance, a 3.5-inch floppy disk has a storage capacity of 1.44 megabytes (MB) (Owen, 2000)1, which makes it inappropriate even for “small” amounts of data. The available large-capacity optical disks such as DVDs which have 4.7 gigabytes (GB) capacity may not suffice transfer of large blocks of movies (“IndoIndians.com”)2.This calls for a medium of storage that could accommodate large amount of information while not being physically bulky. Storage of information to conventional optical discs and magnetic disks is done on their surfaces and this limits their storage capacity (Ashley et al, 2000)3. Therefore, to store information in the volume of a disc rather than on its surface would make it store more information (Ashley et al, 2000). This is the technology employed in holographic storage. It is possible to store individual bits in the volumetric structure of a storage medium even if the bits are too tiny that it would be impossible to store them on the surface of the medium only (Träger, 2007)4. Holographic storage involves the use of laser technology to store computer-generated information in much the same way as it is done for CDs and DVDs but in this case, the information is stored in three dimensions (Kuroda, 2002)5. The technology involves the use of interference patterns which are embedded in a three dimensional photorefractive medium such as a crystal (hence the phenomenon three-dimensional storage) (Owen, 2000). Holographic technology has already been used in facilities such as credit cards where holographic images are used although it has not been embraced on a wider scale as an alternative form of storage (Owen, 2000). Nevertheless, this technology is expected to boost storage capacities by embracing the use of the terabyte as a unit of computer storage (Kuroda, 2002). A unique aspect holographic storage is that even if part of an original storage medium using this technology were destroyed, the information on the medium would still be accessible, albeit with reduced quality (Owen, 2000). No other form of storage medium has such an outstanding attribute (Kuroda, 2002). In order to highlight the aspects of holographic storage, this paper will evaluate the technology used, and how unique the process is with reference to holographic storage devices and other conventional media. Holographic storage is obviously the alternative to mass storage of computer information that will be embraced in the near future on global scale (Kuroda, 2002). However, it is obvious that one very large storage medium may be risky in case the data stored due to failure of the medium or the whole storage device is stolen. In this context, one would argue that it is better, for example to have six movies on six different CDs than to have them all on one DVD. In the same way, since holographic storage media would carry a lot of information, it would be as equally bad to lose the data as it would be to lose the storage device. On the other hand, since a single holographic storage would carry data equal to a multiplicity of CDs, it can be favored in terms of avoiding the bulk involved in transit (Robertson, 1976)6. As mentioned above, holographic storage technology is already in use in devices such as credit cards but more applications are currently being devised. It is therefore imperative to determine how computer storage media manufacturers will embrace the technology and how the devices will compete with other technologies already in place. It also expected that the first mass production of holographic storage media would involve very expensive products that will only be feasible to large organizations, and later become progressively available to the retail market (“techtarget.com”)7. Such a feature will determine the success or failure of the technology in the world computer market. The author views holographic storage as a technology for the future that is expected to impact on the field of information technology due to change in accessibility of computer information. Such ideas form the basis of discussion in this paper. Description of holographic storage technology Holographic storage is a technology is not an entirely new concept since it was initiated some decades ago (Ashley et al, 2000). In spite of the earlier conception of the idea of holographic storage, perceived high costs of mass production of storage media with the technology have kept it under low profile (Ashley et al, 2000). However, holographic storage media employ strategies that are related to the technology used in CDs and DVD (Coufal, Psaltis, & Sincerbox, 2000)8. The major difference as mentioned above is that holographic storage involves a three-dimensional approach that facilitates maximum storage capacity (Owen, 2000). The aspect of three-dimensional storage confers an advantage to holographic storage media in that the media have an increased packing density (Robertson, 1976). In addition, the original information stored on a holographic medium can always be accessed in spite of partial damage to the medium (Owen, 2000), as mentioned above. Unlike the other storage media such as magnetic and optical disks (for example floppy disks, CDs and DVDs) on which information is written and recorded and read along a line or groove, holographic storage uses two dimensional units called pages. Such a technology is particularly useful for video (Owen, 2000). In this context, on-demand reading is possible using a page as a frame. The frame can be easily retrieved by a reading device as opposed to the technology used in reading CDs and DVDs where bit-by-bit scanning is done along a spiral groove (Owen, 2000). During the process of holographic storage, a whole page of data is stored at once as an optical interference within a thick material of photosensitive characteristics (Figure 1) (Ashley et al, 2000). Holographic storage devices are not in solid state and the process of writing and reading of data employs laser beams positioned accurately by rotating mirrors (Owen, 2000). Thus, seek time (time required to retrieve any information from the medium) depends on the mechanical properties of the mirrors (Owen, 2000). Figure 1: Illustration of how one bit of information is stored as a hologram a) Superposition of a rotund wave from one bit with a coherent plane wave forming a pattern of interference. b) The photosensitive medium is subjected to the interference pattern. c) A record of the interference grating is seen stored as changes in the refractive properties of the medium (Ashley et al, 2000). Optical interference is achieved by joining two coherent beams within the structure of the storage medium. Of the two beams, the first one is referred to as the object beam and has the contents of information to be stored (Needleman, 2006)9. The second one is called a reference beam and is made in a manner such that it is simple to reproduce (Needleman, 2006). The pattern of optical interference caused by the two laser beams induces chemical and (or) physical changes in the photosensitive medium (Needleman, 2006). The interference pattern is replicated and stored as a change in the absorption properties, refractive index or breadth of the photosensitive material (Owen, 2000). If the stored interference pattern is illuminated with one of the two waves used in recording, some of the incoming light is made to diffract due to the pattern in a manner such that the other wave is reconstructed (Ashley et al, 2000). Thus, if the interference pattern is illuminated with the reference wave, the object wave is reconstructed and vice versa (Ashley et al, 2000). This series of processes takes place in a setup such as the generalization below (Figure 2). Figure 2: Illustration of the setup for holographic storage Source: Needleman (2006), Courtesy of “InPhase Technologies”10. Many interference patterns can be superimposed the volume of a storage medium and each of the patterns can be accessed independently, insofar as they can be distinguished by the path or spacing of the interference gratings (Goodman, 2004)11. This can be achieved by altering the angle between the object and reference wave or by changing the wavelength of the laser beam. Thus, to read any data page independently, the reference wave that was initially used to store the page is illuminated on the interference pattern (Goodman, 2004). Due to the thickness of the hologram, the incoming reference wave is diffracted by the interference pattern in a manner that causes only the desired object to be notably reconstructed and displayed on an electronic camera. It is estimated that the storage density of such a method is in the magnitude of tens of terabits (1012 bits) per cubic centimeter (Ashley et al, 2000). Initial applications of holographic storage Although the use of holographic storage has not become widespread in application, the technology has been in use for quite some time. As earlier discussed, the technology is commonly used in making holograms in credit cards (Owen, 2000). Earlier, holographic storage was technology was used in displays in aeronautics to enable aircraft controllers to visualize their airspace in three dimensions (Owen, 2000). In computing, holographic memory has a multiplicity of applications. To begin with, holographic memory can be used to provide high-speed transfers of data between computers in the near future (Sand, 2000)12. In this context, a unique application of the holographic storage is data mining. Data mining involves finding particular patterns in large amounts of data (Sand, 2000). This process has broad applications in large databases that hold large patterns which are not distinguishable by the human eye to due to the complexity of the data (Sand, 2000). Although some current computer systems are able to carry out data mining, the mass amount of storage capacity required curtails the capacity of current data storage systems (Owen, 2000). Along this line, the advantages that holographic storage confers on computer systems could exceed the advantages conferred by conventional storage media and therefore speed up data mining considerably. Another application of holographic storage is in petaflop computing (Sand, 2000). According to Sand (2000), a petaflop is a measure of floating-point operations per second, and accounts for a thousand trillion operations per second. With the advent of holographic storage, extremely large amounts of data provided in a holographic storage medium could be made use of in petaflop architecture. Technologies to compete holographic storage The novel idea of holographic storage, though already in use on a narrow scope, is faced with competition from other technologies that aim at improving the field of computer storage. In spite of the fact that conventional storage media such as magnetic disks and optical disks are limited in capacity and speed of operation, they are still popular for their purpose (Haylor, 2005)13. In this context, magnetic disks and optical discs are relatively cheaper than any form of holographic storage device. As earlier mentioned, the first mass production of holographic storage devices is expected to be very costly hence the products will only available (or feasible) to large institutions. Along this line, it can be argued that even if holographic storage devices are produced in large numbers, they will not be as popular to the common market as the conventional storage devices are. Suffice it to say that the conventional optical discs will pose magnificent competition to the incoming holographic storage devices. Apart from being costly, holographic devices will face a litmus test on their performance. Desfarges-Berthelemot (2006)14 noted that many constraints are faced in the use of holographic devices and affect the effectiveness of the devices. For instance, holographic storage devices have high temperature requirements for them to be mechanically stable with the interferometric devices that they employ (Desfarges-Berthelemot, 2006). Holographic storage devices are also hampered by their many requirements such as photographic materials, photopolymers, photoreactive materials and other similar materials (Desfarges-Berthelemot, 2006). In this context, the constraint is that holographic storage devices require very high spatial resolutions, yet the current operations involving wavelengths are mostly limited to ultra violet (UV) and the visible wavelengths (Desfarges-Berthelemot, 2006). All the aforementioned factors limit the applications of holographic storage media in computer use. In order to widen the scope of the competition faced by holographic storage media, it is worthy appraising their compatibility with the current computer technologies. As Desfarges-Berthelemot (2006) put it, an important aspect of any software or hardware is its compatibility to the prevailing software and hardware. If any innovation fails to be attuned to the current technologies then it is deemed inappropriate since its application would require a complete overhaul of the existing operations. This is a major limitation that affects holographic storage and gives other storage options an edge over it. According to Desfarges-Berthelemot (2006), the incompatibility of holographic storage devices with the current generation of optoelectronic and photo detector arrays due to the currently low resolution of these devices makes holographic storage devices difficult to use. Given that optical and magnetic devices are relatively cheaper than holographic storage devices and are also compatible to almost all computer systems, they can be trusted to continue dominating secondary memory in computing. Aside from the conventional magnetic and optical devices, another potential competitor to holographic storage is the use of atomic lattices for storage (Owen, 2000). Owen (2000) opined that storage in atomic lattices in future would involve the use of individual atoms rather than cluster of molecules in materials for storage. If such technology is indeed implemented it will represent the dawn of a new era computer memory. Mass holographic storage has been a topic of discussion over the last few decades and continues to be a current issue. However, what remains to be seen is the implementation of written literature in real practice. Should holographic storage be fully embraced, it will change the face computing and render the perceived difficulty in storage of information a case of history. Nevertheless, holographic storage will face a lot of competition in trying to dominate the market. Recent in technology have resulted in the manufacture of smaller and cheaper lasers, digital cameras, optical recording materials and projector technologies, which have pushed the holographic technology to the border of the market (Huang, 2005)15. How competition in computer storage devices affects business It is worth noting that with the current technologies in business, individuals and organizations handle many computer data each day. In fact, it is not uncommon for many giant organizations in the world to be currently producing or handling more than twenty million files of information per day (Haylor, 2005). This is particularly true in institutions where large organizations perform their transactions online (Haylor, 2005). Businesses such as online sale of tickets or shares necessitate the processing of very many files. In addition, some organizations present fine details of their products on their websites. It is therefore not surprising that such information requires a lot of space for back up storage. On the other hand, organizations that have a good proportion of their information in soft copy need to have its back up in removable storage media. Haylor (2005) reported that by the year 2005 the world was estimated to be producing five billion GB of information per year. Of this information, it was estimated that only a minute fraction (0.01 per cent) was residing in hard copy (printed form), the rest (99.99 per cent) being in electronic form (Haylor, 2005). Such a scenario emphasizes the importance of secondary storage of information by businesses, and implies that organizations should invest at all costs to protect their valued information. Hence, any change in the forms of secondary storage of computer information has a great impact on the decisions made by organizations. Business organizations are affected in different ways when changes in technology such as storage media occur. Storage of information is a vital aspect of business that has to be evaluated assiduously lest unforeseen increases in costs are observed. In the business organizations, the changes affect various departments as discussed below: Profile of storage within the boardroom Organizations have to transform with the dynamic rate of technological advancement. Therefore, as competition in the forms of computer storage media increases, managers need to discuss and opt for the latest media, which is both cost effective and suited to the ever-increasing needs of the organizations (Carr, 2004)16. It is possible that if the dream of fully adopting holographic storage devices becomes a reality, large organizations will rush for the technology in order to improve service delivery to customers. Nevertheless, managers have to discuss the impacts of the technology such as a complete overhaul of the current computer systems, which may of course have limitations. Legislative conformance The kind of storage technology used in any country must conform to the legislative measures implemented in that country as well as world recommended standards. It is not unusual for some countries to ban the use of some technologies due to the long-term impacts of dumping of the used products (Kumar & Phrommathed, 2005)17. Therefore, business organization will go for technologies that are acceptable and to which their customers are adapted. Thus, competition in the computer storage media may be irrelevant to consumers if it cannot bring substantial change in businesses. Internal economies Business organizations have to consider internal economies while evaluating the cost of storage. As such, the organizations have to take the most cost-efficient wares for storage of their data and information (Carr, 2004). If the prices are too exorbitant as those anticipated of holographic storage devices, then small business organizations may opt to remain with the current conventional magnetic disks and optical discs. Business activities Business enterprises have to store information in large databases, they have to keep images of their clients and employees, and they have to download files from the Internet (Carr, 2004). In addition, the organizations have to keep corporate files in safe custody. This calls for means of storage that are very reliable yet friendly to use. In this respect, the businesses would go for storage devices that are most reliable and friendly to both customers and staff. Hence, if the holographic storage devices have more restrictions in use, they may be neglected in preference for other alternatives (Carr, 2004). Nevertheless, since holographic storage devices are likely to offer one-stop storage for businesses, they may be preferred irrespective of their restrictive costs (Carr, 2004). Substantiating storage expenditure Business organizations will definitely have to justify their preference of one storage medium relative to another based on the differences in requirements per organization. In general, competition in the forms of storage will cause changes in organizations depending on their operation. More profound will be the need by competing business to outwit each other. Possible improvements in IT if holographic storage succeeds Despite the difficulties in its application, holographic storage has several advantages (Aven, Coffman & Kogan, 1987)18. As earlier discussed, the technology enables reading of information in form of a “page” (Nalwa & Miyata, 1997)19. This enables quick access information relative to other storage media such as CDs and DVDs. Parallelism is another aspect of holographic storage that enables fast access of information. In this context, objects can be read from or recorded onto a holographic storage material at once unlike in CDs and DVDs where information is read or written bitwise and sequentially (Nalwa & Miyata, 1997; Jolly, 199720). This enables quick transmission of data. Holographic recording is also insensitive to the exact position of laser beams as is the case in CDs and DVDs (Coufal, 2000). All the mentioned factors imply that the implementation of holographic storage in the computer industry will ameliorate information technology by allowing fast access of information carried in a removable device. For instance, it will be easier to access a particular file stored with many others in one holographic storage device, unlike the current situation where a relatively longer duration is required to access, say, a page stored on a DVD. The adoption of three-dimensional memory could dramatically change how microelectronics is used. Web e-mail service providers such as Google and Yahoo routinely offer each of their customers a gigabyte of memory for free (Goodman, 2004). With lager storage devices, customers could enjoy even more intern services. Closely related to that, current mobile phones are usually fitted flash memory chips and easily store address books, calendars, snaps, and so on Meanwhile, CDs and DVDs have already transformed how people listen to music and watch movies. Nevertheless, these media have the limitation of not being able to carry very large amount of data (Goodman, 2004). Holographic storage would overcome such a limitation. Holographic storage devices could hold millions of bits in form of a library of films, movies, video games and so on, just on one device(Huang, 2005). On a more advanced scale, geographical maps could be put on stamp-size chips and used in phone memory. In the medical sector, a person’s entire medical record, including X-ray images could be incorporated into and identification card to allow quick access and retrieval (Huang, 2005). In case holographic storage technology finally becomes available to individual consumers, it could effectively substitutes DVDs and become a dominant medium for sharing information. But this is only a long-term phenomenon in the future. Conclusion Holographic storage is a technology that could greatly transform the field of computer data storage and is therefore worth adopting. The technology would not only improve storage but would also facilitate quick access of information especially on the internet. In addition, phones could be fitted with holographic storage devices in order to provide more features to the users. Holographic storage, if implemented on a large scale would facilitate storage of large maps, patients’ medical record and so forth all on minute devices. Hence, the use of holographic storage should be implemented progressively in spite of its high costs. REFERENCES Ashley, J.;. Bernal, M.P.; Burr, G. W ; Coufal, H.; Guenther, H. Hoffnagle, J. A. Jefferson, C. 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