A disc that can hold 300 gigabytes of data — 60 times more than a DVD — and can be used to read and write data 10 times faster is set to go on sale with compatible drives in late 2006 by InPhase Technologies and Hitachi.

The disc stores information in holographic memory.

InPhase says the technique could theoretically be used to store up to 1.6 terabytes of data on the same size of disc and to read data at 120 megabits per second.