When information is stored on disks, minuscule regions that make up each bit of data are magnetized in one direction or its opposite, to represent a 0 or a 1. Rewriting data involves sending an electromagnetic pulse that reverses the spin of selected bits. Accelerate the pulse and you shorten the time needed to store or rewrite information.

 

 

But if the pulses come too quickly and intensely, the high energy involved makes some of the magnetic changes happen randomly instead of predictably and reliably, according to a group of researchers writing in Wednesday's edition of the journal Nature.

 

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=562&ncid=738&e=1&u=/ap/20040421/ap_on_hi_te/computer_speed_limit

 

 

 

 

So what do u think will replace the current storage technology? Any Ideas ?

Clever things!

http://science.slashdot.org/science/04/04/21/0148258.shtml?tid=126&tid=137&tid=172&tid=198

 

Either that or some kind of ubercrystal...

whats a ubercrystal????? a crystal with a fractional dimensions like fractals?

Magnetic disk drives are (quite obviously) going to be superceded one day, it's just finding a suitable media to replace them - in 20 years time, we probably won't be using them any more.

Holography is generally viewed as the technology that will bring massive amounts of data storage on a very small scale.

 

Something the size of a sugar cube could hold hundreds of gigabytes of data:

 

http://physicsweb.org/article/world/13/7/7

we are also talking about the speed of writing data, not just the amount of storange possible.