How long do your disk drives last for? Three, six, ten years maybe? What if there were a disk that would last a million years? How much space would that hold? How much would it cost?
Researchers at Hitachi Data Systems recently unmasked quartz storage. A readable optical microscope with the life expectancy of a million years.
Just as the Rosetta Stone preserved data in the stone for a couple thousand years, Hitachi is planning on preserving data in quartz for a few hundred million years.
Researchers also investigated a tungsten disk enveloped in silicon nitride which is expected to last a million years. In comparison, a DVD is thought to be able to survive 1,000 years.
Even though none of us expect to live a million years or even close to that. Wouldn’t it be helpful if our records and data would still exist for future Homo Sapiens?
To preserve data for that long is revolutionary.
This is the goal of the Human Document Project.
http://www.hyphenet.com/blog/quartz-storage-disk-will-last-million-years/
Quartz is so durable that it can withstand cataclysmic events like tsunamis, fires, and floods, just as long as it is not broken. Even if it is broken, it’s possible to piece it back together to read data.
Hitachi did not announce current plans to put the quartz chip into practical use, but there are known data stores that would love to start using the quartz instead of the floor space and power to retain their data in storage.
Even removable media like tape and optical need power to maintain an environmentally controlled storage area. The future of storage is likely to be quartz.
What do you think about the quartz storage? Please leave your comments below!
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References:
Building the million year disk – ZDNet
http://www.zdnet.com/building-the-million-year-disk-7000023407/
November 20, 2013
Hitachi Plans to Store Data for a Few Hundred Million Years – HDS Blogs
http://blogs.hds.com/hu/2012/09/hitachi-plans-to-store-data-for-a-few-hundred-million-years.html
September 28, 2012
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