Glass: the future of storage

Glass is a data storage technology on coaster-sized glass plates that can store terabytes of data for thousands of years in a very small space, solving the problem of file sustainability.

Consider that it was only 5.000 years ago that we began to produce writing, and between then and now we must store data for 10.000 years. In addition, we continue to produce data at an amazing rate, and so we should soon turn the planet into a huge data center.

Our massive data storage needs reinforce the need for sustainable ones solutions. Η μαγνητική αποθήκευση, αν και διαδεδομένη, είναι προβληματική. Η περιορισμένη διάρκεια ζωής του απαιτεί συχνή εκ νέου αντιγραφή, αυξάνοντας την κατανάλωση ενέργειας και το functional cost over time.

Elire, an enterprise group focused on data sustainability, works with Microsoft Research's Project Silica team to leverage Glass technology for the Global Music Vault in Svalbard, Norway. This technology can store huge amounts of data on glass plates about the size of a coaster and preserve the data for thousands of years.

Richard Black, Director of Research at Project Silica, reports in the following video: "This technology allows us to write data knowing that it will remain immutable and secure, which is a major step forward in sustainable data storage."

The goal of Project Silica is to write data to a comeye glass and store them on a shelf until needed. Once written, the data inside the glass is impossible to change.

Storing data on glass may sound futuristic, but it's an idea that dates back to the 19th century, when individual photographic negatives were preserved on glass panes. A small sheet of glass can hold several terabytes of data, enough to store about 1,75 million songs, or 13 years of music. Each coaster can store approximately 3.500 movies.

Using silicon-based glass plates, they create a durable file that is not only resistant to electromagnetic pulses and temperature extremes but also environmentally friendly. Additionally Project Silica uses Azure AI to encode and decode data stored on glass, making reading and writing faster and enabling more data storage.