Hitachi has created a sliver of quartz glass 2cm square and 2mm thick with the storage density of a CD, 40MB/in2 which they claim will remain viable for millions of years. Even radiation, water, most chemicals and heat above 1000C will not damage the data stored on this chip and in theory dropping it shouldn't hurt it too much either. Long term storage is a real problem, in some cases paper documents have a better chance of surviving long term in a readable state than do optical or magnetic media. That doesn't even bring readers into the loop, there are many obsolete formats which cannot be read by current readers and finding an old working Zip drive is not an easy task. Hitachi told The Register that they foresee no problems increasing storage density which is good considering the size of crystal you would need for large sized storage. As long as someone can read the binary etched into the glass they would recognize that there was data stored there, on the other hand what is the likelihood they would be running a compatible file system. At least the data will still be there which is more than you can say for the vast majority of storage media used today.
"Company researchers displayed the storage unit, consisting of a sliver of glass 2cm square and 2mm thick, which can hold 40MB of data per square inch, about the same as a standard CD. The data is written in binary format by lasering dots on the glass in four layers, but the researchers say adding more layers to increase storage density isn't a problem."
Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
- Nvidia to add cloud and mobile computing segments at GTC 2013 @ DigiTimes
- What does Steve Wozniak do at Fusion-IO? @ The Register
- Intel Linux OpenGL Driver Remains Slower Than Windows @ Phoronix
- Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security 2013 Review @ TechReviewSource
- BlackBerry 10 carrier testing starts in October, OS remains on schedule @ Engadget
- Here’s the Chip Apple Is Using to Stop You from Buying Cheap Cables @ Gizmodo
- AssistiveTouch Bug In Apple's New iOS 6 @ TechARP
- OKI MC562dn review: small office LED all-in-one @ Hardware.info
A note on the long term
A note on the long term viability of optical disks. I have 1 CD written in 1999 that is not only readable but shows no signs of giving up.
Under the proper conditions, I have no doubt that optical disks could last at least 100 years if not longer. I have to say though, a storage medium that can last millions of years would be highly useful in archiving the sum of human knowledge.
I bet it doesn’t have a label
I bet it doesn't have a label or fancy colour coating on the top of it. Whoever decided that etching labels into CDs was OK even if that dye will slowly dissolve the storage media on CDs ought to be blended.