Trends in storage of digital data

Trends in the price and performance of several storage technologies are presented with emphasis on magnetic recording and semiconductor memories. Since these technologies present a moving target, new contenders cannot enter the marketplace unless they provide a significant advantage over the entrenched competition. It is concluded that in the next decade, optical storage of digital data can make an impact at the high capacity end-trillion bits and above-provided prices are at least an order of magnitude lower and access at least an order of magnitude faster than in present day systems. © 1974 Optical Society of America.