Holographic Storage to Steal BD's Thunder?

[speleofool]

I've seen holographic storage pop up from time to time during HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray discussions, but I didn't think it could be a real factor until I heard that 300GB discs will be available this year:
http://www.cnet.com/4831-11405_1-6411595.html?tag=all

Read more about holographic storage on the manufacturer's site (and watch the demos--they're cool):
http://www.inphase-technologies.com/

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After doing some homework, I think BD-ROM will have enough advantages to get a foothold in the marketplace, although with "H-ROM" stealing the capacity crown by the end of the year I wonder if BD's lifecycle may be shortened by holographic technologies. Here are a few key points:

• H-ROM will probably not be backward compatible with DVD / CD discs as it is a totally new technology (supposition on my part).
• H-ROM promises a transfer rate of 20MB/s as opposed to 36MB/s and higher for BD-ROM.
• H-ROM will offer 300GB discs this year and promises 800GB discs in the future.

From what I'm seeing, it looks like BD-ROM will be faster (at least initially), but H-ROM will scale to far larger capacities. So, the question may be, what is more important--speed or storage capacity? It sounds like with H-ROM you could do a complete dump of most consumer hard disks on the market today, and if it runs overnight, who cares if it's slower than BD-ROM?

The slower transfer rate of H-ROM does sound like a handicap, but being a brand new technology, who knows how much unrealized headroom there may be? The first iterations of H-ROM use red laser technology, and if you watch the demo, they seem to read large blocks of data in one flash of light. I wonder is this technology is scalable to blue laser technology, would that not only improve storage capacity (scary!), but also throughput?

Anyone else have some thoughts on how these technologies will compete in the real world?

Cheers!
Speleo.

P.S. Obviously, cost and manufacturability will be a major factor. I haven't seen any reliable figures for H-ROM yet, but I imagine it may be expensive to begin with since it's a brand new technology.