Believe it or not, pretty much all of the data you have stored or backed up on storage drives and disks is at risk of being damaged or lost thanks to things such as “data rot” caused by the loss of electrical charges over time inside the storage devices components. So what do you do if you want to ensure that your photos and files last a lot longer than yourself? scientists have recently come up with a solution that promises to save your data for what’s essentially and eternity.
That solution is a small nanostructured glass disc that promises to hold your data safely for billion of years, 13.8 billion to be precise. At this point you’d be forgiven for thinking that due to its size the disc wouldn’t even hold what you’ve got stored on your phone let alone everything you have backed up, but you’d be wrong.
Researchers at the University of Southampton announced that they’ve found a way to store large amounts of data on the small glass disc using laser writing. They’ve called this five dimensional (5D) digital data because in addition to the datas position, size and orientation also play a role.
Each glass storage disc can hold a seriously impressive 360 terabytes of data and remains stable at temperatures of up to 1,000°C (1,832°F). Although to ensure the data lasts as long as possible, 13.8 billion years, the disc is best kept at temperatures below 190°C, or 374°F meaning that as long as you don’t store the disc in the oven your data will be safe long after the sun dies and the world as we know it most likely ends.
Thanks to the incredible lifespan that the storage discs have they offer places such as libraries and national archives an much needed eternal storage solution. So far the scientists have managed to preserve important data and documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Magna Carta, and Kings James Bible.
As of now the technology isn’t available to the consumer and there’s no word on the price. Researchers are now looking for companies that will bring the technology to the market.
via Petapixel
