How does femtosecond seek times on a hard drive sound?  It may not actually hit those speeds anytime soon, but switching to using polarized light to flip bits on a hard drive is certainly going to increase HDD speeds by a lot.  Read how they did what was previously thought impossible at Physics World.

"Physicists in Netherlands and Japan are the first to flip the value of a magnetic memory bit by firing a very short

pulse of circularly-polarized laser light at it. Unlike other magneto-optic data storage systems, no external

magnetic field was required to flip the bit, which meant that its value could be changed about 50 thousand times

faster than the fastest conventional memory. The result could lead to the development of low-cost and ultrafast

all-optical magnetic hard disk drives."

Here are some more Storage reviews from around the web:

  
Storage

• Mission "Defragmentation". Part 2: PerfectDisk @ X-bit Labs
• Western Digital SE16 750GB:

  "Quiet" a Performer @ AnandTech

• Corsair 8GB Flash

  Survivor GT Review @ Techconnect Magazine

• Thecus N5200 Pro - NAS with an

  injection of iSCSI @ HEXUS

• Storage robot at your service: a review of the Drobo @ Ars Technica
• VIZO Uranus URA-350SA eSATA and USB Hard Drive Enclosure @ Futurelooks
• QNAP TS-109 Pro NAS Review @ Hardwarecanucks
• Hard Drive Buying Guide @

  TechARP

• Super Talent

  2GB 200x USB Flash Drive Review @ Virtual-Hideout