I still remember the promise of the CD-Rom. Billions of years.
They were only off by a couple orders of magnitude.. 10 vs 1000000000 is easy to confuse.
Glass discs that can store 360TB and remain intact for billions of years (2016)
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Re: Glass discs that can store 360TB and remain intact for billions of years (2016)
#52Seems a bit of a waste to dedicate an entire 360TB disc to a single text document like a bible, which is probably just a few KBs... /s More seriously, they don't talk about reading capabilities (retrieval speed etc). And what if it gets scratched? What is the error tolerance? At that density, a single speck of dust could have dramatic implications... I hope this reaches industrial viability, because we desperately ne…
I don't disagree, but it's not really different with spinning rust. the solution would likely be similar: seal it in an enclosure to prevent intrusion of dust, scratches, etc.
I believe HDDs slowly lose stored data if you don't rewrite it periodically? I remember reading some data recovery forum a few years back with the local experts saying something about 10 years of reliable data storage for an HDD lying on a shelf. After that, all bets are off.
Re: Glass discs that can store 360TB and remain intact for billions of years (2016)
#53I dunno, but it seems to me universities increasingly focus on press releases and marketing departments... 5D and 13.8 billion years? Phony. I know no sane scientist or enigneer that would say they use more than 3D physics. Sounds like catch phrases to sell. With such logic plain old HDD is at least 4D, because it uses CHS coordinates and magnetic orientation, to store data. To me such communication style undermines…
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Re: Glass discs that can store 360TB and remain intact for billions of years (2016)
#54Seems a bit of a waste to dedicate an entire 360TB disc to a single text document like a bible, which is probably just a few KBs... /s More seriously, they don't talk about reading capabilities (retrieval speed etc). And what if it gets scratched? What is the error tolerance? At that density, a single speck of dust could have dramatic implications... I hope this reaches industrial viability, because we desperately ne…
Yeah, actual museum-grade archival is so much more than just having an aging-resistant media. You also need to be able to read and decode it many years into the future, which is really tricky to guarantee - you can't assume the future generations will know how to make a reading device and remember your formats/encodings. So it's a bit like unzip.zip problem.
Re: Glass discs that can store 360TB and remain intact for billions of years (2016)
#55So if one of these discs was dug up by a civilization with the level of technology we had in, say, the 70's, would they be able to tell what it was, much less make something to read it?
They'd likely know it had information on it, even if they couldn't necessarily read it immediately. Anyone storing information is likely to mark it or arrange it in some non-natural way, otherwise it'll just look like rocks.
so how do you know that the crystalline structure of some rocks aren't encoding some information?
Alternatively, information encoded in rocks could've been encrypted. And encrypted information should be indistinguishable from random noise.
Re: Glass discs that can store 360TB and remain intact for billions of years (2016)
#56I still remember the promise of the CD-Rom. Billions of years.
CDs used to be sturdier and last longer. Nothing close to billions of years of course.
Re: Glass discs that can store 360TB and remain intact for billions of years (2016)
#57I dunno, but it seems to me universities increasingly focus on press releases and marketing departments... 5D and 13.8 billion years? Phony. I know no sane scientist or enigneer that would say they use more than 3D physics. Sounds like catch phrases to sell. With such logic plain old HDD is at least 4D, because it uses CHS coordinates and magnetic orientation, to store data. To me such communication style undermines…
And the picture they release show the christian bible. Tells you everything you need to know about them really.
Re: Glass discs that can store 360TB and remain intact for billions of years (2016)
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
High quality discs are capable of that, the problem is the drives to read them all broke down. For an ultra-long term storage medium like this that's moot. If someone wants to read one of these in a billion years, they'll just have to develop the tech, but that would be true of any such long term mass storage medium. It's not necessarily a strike against this particular implementation.
> High quality discs are capable of that, the problem is the drives to read them all broke down. What are you referring to? I assume you're not just talking about "high quality" compact discs, since we have plenty of readers for those.
The OP meant the drives would've broken down before the disks would degrade.
Re: Glass discs that can store 360TB and remain intact for billions of years (2016)
#59Im always sceptical about these claims of archive longevity. IIRC when CD-Rs were first available, they were touted as suitable for century long archives. The reality was far from that.
You can still buy archive CD-Rs rated for 300 years. That didn't prevent everyone from buying cheap crap that barely lasts 5 years before becoming unreadable.
Re: Glass discs that can store 360TB and remain intact for billions of years (2016)
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just speculating, but if you can index in 5 dimensions to get your data, should it not be called 5D? data = read_bit(x, y, z, yaw, size) But i agree, i would appreciate more information if they are going to use buzz-words.
That seems more like five degrees of freedom than five dimensions.
Hmm... so the D could be for 'D'egrees of freedom? Who knows... like someone said, it is marketing, and hence a lot could be lost in translation just for easy/popular optics.