Maxell will introduce its first holographic storage system in late 2006, the company has declared.

Maxell Technologies announced a new storage system based on holography. According to InPhase Technology, the designer of the technology, holography breaks through the density limits of conventional storage by going beyond recording only on the surface, to recording through the full depth of the medium. Unlike other technologies that record one data bit at a time, holography allows a million bits of data to be written and read in parallel with a single flash of light. This enables transfer rates significantly higher than current optical storage devices.

The company will begin shipping its storage system by the end of the next year. First it will be offered a removable system based on 300GB media and capable of transferring data at a rate of 20MBps. The technology can achieve 1.6TB per disk – and that’s uncompressed capacity – with a 120MBps bandwidth according to InPhase. The data stored is guaranteed to last over 50 years.

This holography technology is also being tested and used by a Japan company called Optware. they already made a 200GB HVD-RW disc type which is being promoted by Fuji Photo and other Japanese companies.