Ask Slashdot: What Happened To The Idea Of Holographic Data Storage?

dryriver writes: This is an episode of the BBC's Tomorrow's World program broadcast all the way back in 1984 ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?... ) where a presenter shows hands-on how a laser hologram of a real world object can be recorded onto a transparent plastic medium, erased again by heating the plastic with an electric current, and then re-recorded differently. The presenter states that computer scientists are very interested in holograms, because the future of digital data storage may lie in them. This was 35 years ago. Holographic data storage for PCs, smartphones et cetera still is not available commercially. Why is this? Are data storage holograms too difficult to create? Or did nobody do enough research on the subject, getting us all stuck with mechanical harddisks and SSDs instead? Where are the hologram drives that appeared "so promising" three decades ago?

cost and complexity

[apraetor]

Holographic storage devices haven't been able to outrun ordinary HD/SSD storage in terms of capacity and price point, yet. The only clear advantage at the moment is in throughput. Sometimes the answer is more pedestrian than we'd like!