An apparatus for reading from or writing to holographic storage media, and more specifically a common aperture type apparatus for reading from or writing to holographic storage media with multiple reference beams having a reduced noise. In a common aperture type apparatus for reading from or writing to a holographic storage medium using shift-multiplexing, with a coaxial arrangement of two or more reference beams and an object beam or a reconstructed object beam, the reference beams being arranged around the object beam or the reconstructed object beam in a storage layer of the holographic storage medium. Each of the reference beams is located essentially halfway between two adjacent central peaks of shift-multiplexed holograms.