Alternative Storage Techniques

The previous chapters of this book have detailed progress in the research and development of holographic data storage. This effort has been undertaken with the hope of eventually producing a commercially successful data storage device based on holography. The goal may never be realized. Improvements in integrated circuit, magnetic disk, optical disk, and magnetic tape storage may be sufficient for the near term. Or perhaps alternative data storage technologies will prove to be more successful in the markets that holographic storage is attempting to claim. The purpose of this section is to examine some of these alternative techniques.