Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Iomega Patents 850GB DVD Nano-Technology

Posted by CmdrTaco on

Mike writes "US Patent & Trademark Office recently issued a patent to Iomega Corp. for its work with nano-technology and optical data storage. New technology, called Articulated Optical - DVD will allow 40-100 times more data (upto 850 Gb) to be stored on a DVD with data transfer rates 5-30 times faster than today's DVDs, and at similarly low costs. AO - DVD is a novel technique of encoding data on the surface of a DVD by using reflective nano-structures to encode data in a highly multi-level format."

7 of 422 comments (clear)

  1. Cool by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Corporate Data for small buisness on one Disk. Who needs tape anymore

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    1. Re:Cool by gunnk · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Have you ever dropped a DLT?

      Someone over in our Comp Sci department did that a few years ago. It looked okay, though, so it went back on the shelf.

      Next time they ran a restore from the tape it destroyed the DLT drive. Unfortunately, they thought the drive was the problem, not the tape, so they stuck the tape in a backup drive... oops.

      The example you gave also has a couple of others problems:

      1 - No matter what media you use you NEVER rely on one copy as the only copy of your data. If you do, it is NOT a BACKUP.

      2 - A DVD out of it's case is easy to scratch up. Of course, magnetic tape has a pretty short lifespan out of its case as well -- the difference is only that the tape goes into the drive CASE AND ALL. When you put your backup tape in a case you are really putting your tape + case into a second protective case. I've actually seen drives that do the same thing for optical disks. It's not a bad idea for critical backups.

      --
      Life is short: void the warranty.
    2. Re:Cool by /ASCII · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, I've heard BS stories like that one before. I highly doubt the parent is a true story, and if it is, this should not reflect badly on the DVD format. It is simply a case of incompetence in putting all your eggs in one basket. The same thing could have happened to a tape, which is why important data should be stored in multiple copies at multiple places.

      --
      Try out fish, the friendly interactive shell.
  2. Does a protoype exist? by NightWulf · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm reading the articles mentioning that they have been issued two patents, but is there anything tangible to these patents. So they have a working 850GB DVD using nanotech, or is this just another patent for tech that *could* be made in 2025.

  3. Great! by 0kComputer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Now I can get rid of my Zip drive.

    --
    Top 10 Reasons To Procrastinate
    10.
  4. Scratched discs? by adisakp · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Of course, with 850GB per disc, a single scratch will wipe out a couple gigs of data.

  5. I'll wait 5 years.. by Adult+film+producer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    850 gigs ? Wow.. nice but how about reliability and longevity? (I'm sure the press release will promise the heaven and sky.) I'm reminded of this by people setting themselves up as guniea pig experiments for laser eye surgery. I'll wait another 10 years before diving into that one too. A lot of theory suggests everything will be okay but I'll let father time be the judge of that.