Data storage accompanies us in our daily lives.
More and more data are stored in a digital form, for example photos. In the 90s
and early 20th century we were used to developing photos. This form
of data storage called paper was not a very durable way of saving pictures.
Nowadays when data carriage is getting bigger and bigger we wonder less where
we will save our data. But it could still be a problem, because the space in
our smartphones is limited. Nevertheless, the technology of data storage is
growing at an extraordinary rate. An example could be memory cards that are
smaller and began to store more and more data. Even over the course of a few
months we can see that SSD discs that cost from 500 to 1000 zł we are able to buy
now for half its price.
In this presentation I want to show you briefly
how the technology of data storage was changing over the centuries. Then I will
explain how two-dimension data storage works. At the end of my presentation I
will explain what this future technology called 5D data storage is and how it
can effect our lives.
How technology of storage data changes over the
years:
Let’s think about data storage which
accompanied us from the beginning of a human species. It is our brain. The
original and most powerful data storage device to date. This synaptic treasure
trove of data provided the best storage for generations of oral traditions.
Now think about prehistory and ancient history.
The first people stored their data on the walls of caves. Cave painting had a
critical point of failure in that they were unmovable. Even today we can admire
the data that has managed to maintain for many millions of years.
Carved tablets were used by Egyptians and they
provided accessible and portable data storage. Papyrus paper is a much better
option for saving information. While transporting data on carved tablets was
problematic and dangerous, because of its size, paper became the primary means
of data storage. From an ancient history until the appearance of punched card,
paper was the only acceptable form of data storage.
Now let’s move to year 1725. The first punched
card was invented by Basile Bouchon and was used to program mechanisms such as
player pianos and textile looms. A single punched card could store about 0,12KB
of data. Think about how many punched cards, we would need to save all Google
data. Let’s assume that Google has stored the capacity of 15 exabytes, it is in
bytes: 15,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes ;). A punch card can hold about 80
characters and a box of cards holds 2000 cards. Here is a picture showing how
high punch cards would reach compared to the ice sheets that covered the region
during the last advance of the glaciers. That's three times deeper.
Magnetic tapes were invented in 1951 and began
to replace punched cards. Magnetic cards had a capability of storage of 10 000
punch cards.
Next, in 1956 hard drive was invented by IBM.
Over the next few decades, the storage capacity increased significantly, from
5MB to 1GB in 1982, to a few TB currently.
In 1985
CD-ROM was invented and I will use it to present:
How two dimension storage works:
First let me explain how data is read from a
normal storage like CD. The laser light shins at tiny line with bumps on it.
Whenever the laser hits a bump, it is reflected back and recorded as a 1. When there’s
no bump it is recorded as a 0. That’s when the word “dimension” comes into
play. CD on which we have only two states 0 and 1 is called two-dimension
storage. We can only save on it information-on and information-off and from
this information we can deduce any other data.
How the 5D storage works:
A whole new kind of digital data storage could
protect the legacy of the documents humanity considers most precious. The tiny
glass disk can store up to 360 terabytes of information and will be able to
survive for billions of years without damage or data loss.
First let
me explain how much data is 360 terabytes.
Let’s
assume that the average amount of data for a Steam game is 5,525 GB. There are
about 6000 games on Steam.
6000 *
5,525 is 33,15 Terabytes.
This mean that, if we had just one standard 5D
disc, we could store there 5 copies of every single game on Steam.
This small disc was invented by scientists at
the University of Southampton, and is made from nano-structured glass material
to store a huge amount of data in five dimensions. 5D discs store information
within their interior using tiny physical structures known as
"nanogratings." Much like those bumpy lines in CDs, it changes how
light is reflected, but instead of doing so in just two "dimensions,"
the reflected light encodes five. The changes to the light can be read to
obtain pieces of information about the nanograting's orientation, the strength
of the light it refracts and its location in space on the x, y, and z axes.
These extra dimensions allow to store more data than optical discs do.
The inventors of five-dimensional drives assure
us they can survive 13.8 billion years in the room where the temperature
reaches 190 degrees Celsius. They also stated
that discs which they called " superman memory crystal " will survive
an infinite amount of time at room temperature. The most important news is that
the inventors saved the information on these drives during the experiment conducted
in 2013. It was only 300 kilobytes of text information, but it shows that a
breakthrough in data storage has already occurred.
Here you can see the process of writing data
into nano disc by laser:
There are countless advantages of these tiny
glass discs. Some day in the foreseeable future, you will stop worrying about
having enough storage space for anything. The world of data storage will soon
be changed forever.
Source:
http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/data-storage-technique-packs-360-tb-data-glass-disk-eternity/
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ReplyDeleteData storage history is amazing - brain, paintings,..., punched cards,..., CD,..., 5D disc. Technological progress in data capacity is huge, but always where is a supply, there is a demand too. I think, when (or if) 5D will become a commonly used storage device, there will be a demand for bigger capacity.
ReplyDeleteI am glad that you like the history of data storage, it is amazing how over these years it has changed. I agree with you that when this 5D discs will be commonly used, we would need a bigger space. I think that we are at a time when pendrive will be converted to 5D discs, and it will take many years to change this. I am sure that until the next change, scientists will definitely find new technology to store our data in bigger capacity.
DeleteThat is just great! So many data in a disc the size of an ordinary coin. Now I’m keeping my pendrives in a wallet (it’s quite big and I always make sure to have it with me) but this disc I could actually try to use instead of a coin :D You wrote that it can survive for many years in high temperature. But I wonder if it is resistant to scratches and other mechanical damages.
ReplyDeleteI haven’t found any information how mechanical damages effect on 5D discs. I can only tell you that comparing CD to 5D discs, CD can be easily damaged and destroyed by any scratch on it, because information saved on the CD I stored on external layer of CD. It is different for 5D discs. There data is saved inside of this disc so for sure it is much more resistant from mechanical damages.
DeleteI have never think about cave wall as a data storage :D That's an interesting idea. Have you watched TV series titled 'Prison break'? There was a guy who had a map tattooed on his whole body. We can say his skin was a data storage too, can't we? :)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, that 5D storage might be great, but if it's a size of a coin I am 100% sure I would lost it somewhere very soon. We have so much data nowadays - do we really need to store all of it? When people had only few square meters on their cave wall, they better had to think hard what to put on it or they would face "not enough wall" problem.
OK, even if we can persist every piece of data, what about erasing data? We know that nothing disappears on the internet and if we start saving everything than we will have much less control on that what happen to all of those information.
Great example with “Prison break” series. I have watched it but I only like the first to seasons: ).
DeleteI think that now we are out of control of what is happening with our data on internet. I agree with you that what appears on the internet will never disappear.
Think about Google Drive. We get from Google free space to store our data, it is about 15GB. If all this hard drives would change to this 5D discs we could get from Google more free space. That’s because the physical space in those server rooms costs, and to fit more data in less space will be more profitable
Interesting article, I never heard before about 5d data storage. Possibilities that this technology is offering us are really vast. I'm thinking about one thing. What about costs of this technology? I imagine that materials are not really expensive but technology that is used for recording information on discs is really complicated so in my opinion not profitable for now. But I'm looking forward to see how this technology will develope. It can be really world changing.
ReplyDeleteWow, it is a great invention. Data volume that we generate increases from year to year, so this invention seems to be the ultimate solution to permanently store valuable data for our civilization - movies, music, recordings of different languages, books, articles and many many other things. 5d data storage seems to be easy, cheap without the possibility of removal, efficient and difficult to destroy mechanically way to protect any valuable documents and files.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting article , thanks! I'd never heard of 5d data storage , similar solutions I have seen it only in the movies. This is a great solution to keep large and important data on optical disks. I wonder when it will come into normal life . World very quickly goes forward , I wonder what people come up with for 50 years. .
ReplyDeleteAmazing article! I've never heard about the 5D data storage before.
ReplyDeleteNot only we will be able to process huge amount of data in a short amount of time (my article about the quantum computer) but we could store everything without worry for our disc's volume. There is also the big advantage of the 5D discs durability. They can survive billions of years in bad enviromental conditions.
I never heard about 5D storage before, thank you for sharing :)
ReplyDeleteAgain it’s something that my imagination probably will put somewhere between science fiction ides that will be available in the long term future, but today - it’s reality. Nowadays technologic progress is extremely fast and big ‘jump’ in technology might happen just in few months. 50 years ago computers were as big as whole room – now we have our smartphones, smart watches even smart-fridge.
Hi Mokołaj,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the interesting article.
I've never heard about the 5D data storage before. his is a great solution to keep large and important data on optical disks. But I'm looking forward to see how this technology will develope. It can be really world changing.
I must say that It sounds really nice, but with every big invention there is a lot of work to make it usable in real life. Scientists had found way to save data very efficiently, but let's move that technology to real life, it will be usefull only for backup purposes. I think that biggest problem which they will need to solve is to find a efficient way to save/read data from such 5d storage, furthermore simotaneously.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your article. I didn't heard about 5d discs/storage before. It's really interesting, but I guess about durability and resistance of this storage... What will happen when it will be scratched or it falls? Losing many files after only one small scratch? Not quite good :)
ReplyDeleteAlso the prices at the beginning of mass-production will be really big - and we will need not only a storage, but also a compatible reader.
But it's great that only few square centimeters will allow you to storage all your files. Without having to take a decision which is important, and what is less important and can be removed.
Thank,you for your presentation. It was very intresting. I have never before, heard about 5 data storage. I think that technological process still goes ahead. Life is changing, and this inventions is good. However, I agree with Maciej, pepeole don't think about the past. They usually saved a lot od documents on one computer or only portable disk- and don't care about dangerous against loss or burning files. Next problem is the price of divices, if buy this disk, we should change all devices - we must buy new one which will be comaptible. In other hand many companies try stop using of the archive of paper documents - beacuse the cheper way, could be scan and save on server. So in this way 5 data storage can be a good backup. Summarizing this divce has advantages and disadvantages.
ReplyDeleteThank,you for your presentation. It was very intresting. I have never before, heard about 5 data storage. I think that technological process still goes ahead. Life is changing, and this inventions is good. However, I agree with Maciej, pepeole don't think about the past. They usually saved a lot od documents on one computer or only portable disk- and don't care about dangerous against loss or burning files. Next problem is the price of divices, if buy this disk, we should change all devices - we must buy new one which will be comaptible. In other hand many companies try stop using of the archive of paper documents - beacuse the cheper way, could be scan and save on server. So in this way 5 data storage can be a good backup. Summarizing this divce has advantages and disadvantages.
ReplyDelete