Remember when an Apple IIe upgraded to 128K of RAM was considered a tricked-out computer? The first Apples weren't even outfitted with a hard drive. These days, however, a 1-gigabyte disk can barely sate the urge to store and retrieve high-res images, CD-quality sound, and full-motion video.
Fortunately, the RAM price index keeps dropping, while the density of magnetic media magnifies. How long will this trend continue? And what are the alternatives? After invoking the obligatory "Don't forget to back up your data," our info-storage experts summoned up the future of memory.
Death of the Floppy Disk
In recent years, 3.5-inch disks have been pushed aside by SyQuest SyJets, Zip and Jaz drives, and other removable media. But when will floppies become nothing more than kitschy coasters? According to Reich, "floptical technology or DVD-RAM will have a sufficiently low cost to replace the floppy in the next few years." Chen agrees that DVD-RAM – today's discs can store 2.7 gigabytes of data per side – or a next-generation Zip drive will soon become the standard. "Diskettes, as we know them today, will only be around in the near term for interoperability," he comments. But even as new removable media evolve, Celi is confident that inexpensive floppies will continue serving a purpose for low-end uses. Besides, he says, "I'm not sure we need to kill them."
Solid-State Replaces Magnetic Hard Disks
Replacing moving parts with silicon should make computers more durable. That means eliminating notoriously problematic mechanical hard drives. But with hard disks selling for less than 7 cents per megabyte, compared with solid-state memory's cost of US$6 per megabyte, our experts agree that mechanical memory will continue to be the standard built-in storage medium for the foreseeable future. "The memory industry has a long way to go before it will resolve the two-orders-of-magnitude difference in price," Reich says. And that's without considering the fact that most solid-state memory can't hold data effectively without constant power. "When you go to nonvolatile memory, which doesn't get erased when you turn the computer off, you're talking about significantly higher costs," Celi points out.
Terabyte Hard Disks for PCs
Today's fat multimedia files require massive amounts of hard disk space. "If a high-end drive today can hold 20 or more gigabytes of data, and this density increases by a factor of 40," Hoagland notes, "it's clear that a terabyte drive is possible." Still, that possibility offers little help to those already wrestling with digital video on the desktop. Reich's advice: Be patient. "Disk density has been increasing by 50 to 60 percent per year for more than 25 years," he explains, which means a terabyte drive is approximately 20 years off. Celi, on the other hand, believes that today's magnetic medium may be dead by then. "Magnetic disk technologies are pushing the envelope now, but they won't be in 10 years," he says. "Optical disks will provide that kind of storage capacity first."
Holographic Storage Media in Use
Holograms have moved way beyond the realm of cheesy art and security stickers. Advances in this field are leading to holographic storage media, where a laser can store a terabyte of data inside a crystal no larger than a sugar cube. (See "Geek Page: The Future of Memory". Celi envisions massive database archives on removable holographic memory crystals that could be brought from computer to computer sort of like floppy or Zip disks. "It will represent an additional capability," adds Hoagland, "but not in the sense of changing the importance of solid-state or magnetic storage." Even the most adventurous early adopters shouldn't hold their breath, however. "While very exciting, this is advanced research," says Reich, "and no specific products are being built in volume by any major storage manufacturer."
This article originally appeared in the November issue of Wired magazine.
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