  We theoretically and numerically study the efficiency of Brillouin-based
opto-acoustic data storage in a photonic waveguide in the presence of thermal
noise and laser phase noise. We compare the physics of the noise processes and
how they affect different storage techniques, examining both amplitude and
phase storage schemes. We investigate the effects of storage time and pulse
properties on the quality of the retrieved signal, and find that phase storage
is less sensitive to thermal noise than amplitude storage.
