General Electric (GE) unveiled new technology that can hold information equivalent of 20 Blu-ray disks on one single standard disk.

Though the development of next generation optical storage is still in early development, the company showcased a prototype holographic 500GB Storage Disc that could make its way to every home in the near future.

“GE’s breakthrough is a huge step toward bringing our next generation holographic storage technology to the everyday consumer,” said Brian Lawrence, who leads GE’s Holographic Storage program.

Typical optical storage such as DVDs and Blu-ray discs store information only on the surface of the disc. Holographic storage technology uses three-dimensional patterns that can store bits of information on the entire volume of the disc.

The holographic discs technology is capable of storing the equivalent of 100 DVDs or 20 Blu-rays disc which is only capable of holding 50-gigabytes to date.

The company claims that the hardware in the new technology is so similar to current optical storage technology today, micro-holographic players can made backward compatible to play back CDs, DVDs and BDs.

“Because GE’s micro-holographic discs could essentially be read and played using similar optics to those found in standard Blu-ray players, Lawrence said Our technology will pave the way for cost-effective, robust and reliable holographic drives that could be in every home. The day when you can store your entire high definition movie collection on one disc and support high resolution formats like 3-D television is closer than you think.”

General Electric says it’s been working on holographic storage for six years, and through the new breakthroughs in storage, the company is eyeing to also produce more than 1TB of storage data.

Electronics General electric