Memory that stores data for millions of years

Hitachi has managed to develop a solution for long-term storage of data and claims that in this way they can save hundreds of millions of years.

The technology that was introduced earlier this week in Tokyo, uses a very precise laser to the small pieces of silica glass incorporated dots binary code.

Optical microscope (paired with a computer capable to decipher the imprint) later used to obtain the original data stored on a piece of quartz glass.

Hitachi solution is such that it will be able to survive any apocalyptic scenario that you can imagine: a two centimeter square piece of quartz glass, fire resistant - Hitachi is one such sample is heated up to 1,000 degrees Celsius for two hours, and the data were then able to successfully recover .

This does not mean that Hitachi no obstacles that must be overcome. Capacity is a problem because the laminated quartz glass can save up to about 40MB per square inch. This puts it on par with the CD-R, but not in rankings with a much larger (and far less reliable) external drives.

Nevertheless, this technology makes it really fascinating way to archive important historical and cultural data.

2012-11-24 15:22:24

Source: http://www.thesciencenews.info/2012/11/memory-that-stores-data-for-millions-of.html