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New 5D Storage to Offer 10,000x the Density of Blu-ray

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Re: New 5D Storage to Offer 10,000x the Density of Blu-ray

#131
post #61
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Dimension in the data sense of the word, not Dimension in the spatial sense of the word. Multi-dimension data is a thing, and it goes a lot higher than 4, 5, or 7.

>I think Dimension in the data sense of the word Where else is that used? At least to me (and the common layperson), the only usage seems to be from people trying to hype up storage mediums. also, if we're using that definition, does that mean I have a 7D SSD? The NAND cells are arranged on both the planar axis, and stacked (3d NAND). That's 3 dimensions. Each NAND cell also encodes data using various charge levels,…

That is still O(N^3) in my opinion. If you scale up the media in all directions, your data scales like the cubic. The charge level makes it maybe 3.1 dimensions, but it isn't really scalable.

Now if you could add arbitrary voltage levels without losing precision, that would be 4D.

Re: New 5D Storage to Offer 10,000x the Density of Blu-ray

#133
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They mentioned 500TB for a single glass disk, isn't that 100,000x more than a 5GB blu-ray, or are they comparing it with the 10-layer blu-rays that never really hit the market? Is this the same UK group that did all the holographic disc research that is basically vaporware in the mass market (I don't want to call their research vaporware, just that it never hit the consumer market)? Edit: Whoops. 4.7 geebees is for a…

They did indeed mention 500TB. That doesn't mean they have actually stored 500TB anywhere, or that they have a system that's currently capable of storing 500TB anywhere, or even that they genuinely have good reason to think that their system can practically be made to store 500TB in something the size of a Blu-Ray disc. Maybe it can! But so far as I can tell the 10000x figure is much more what they hope might be achi…

Blah, seems a long way from usefulness.

I guess it comes down to areal density vs hard drives. If we want a miracle data storage technology for backup, it would fundamentally need to either be much better in bits/in^2 or a lot of layers.

My google math says 50nm x 50nm x 4 bits is right at a terabit/sq inch.

HDDs are around 1.34 terabit per sq inch. They have more tricks, but it does seem that it'll be harder to move forward.

I guess a bluray was 12.6 gigabits/sq in, and could at least be stacked to four layers with dual-sided dual-layer, about 50 gigabits/sq inch. I think theoretically optical media is very durable, but I still remember the organic dyes in consumer DVD-Rs fading pretty quickly.

Hm, SSDs are passing hard drives in areal density. A 2016 article says they hit 1.6 terabits/sq in. I think SSD makers have closed in on over 64 layers/stacks, and they are at 4bits/cell now. Oh jeez, are they doing 6 ad 8 per cell too? Yeesh that seems very unreliable.

SSDs can't shrink their cells because it reduces durability of the cell, so their path forward is more stacking or just stacking chips on chips as fabs making them drop the costs. SSDs also fail at long-term storage.

So maybe the mythical 500TB cube of data will still have to be optical/holographic.

Re: New 5D Storage to Offer 10,000x the Density of Blu-ray

#134

The other day I was talking with a friend about the high cost and perceived fragility of tape drives for long term personal archival while bemoaning the loss of higher density optical storage technology. It's not easy to backup or shuffle around terabytes of personal video, audio and pictures. Hard drives aren't exactly the right media for safe deposit boxes. In the 90's I had an Iomega Ditto 250MB drive that held 12…

I burn 100GB backups via blu-ray. One or two is enough for my non-movie files. They started stagnating a few years ago when streaming ascended however. Shame as I'd like higher capacity as well. Cheap USB flash drives are already moving into this space. I just got a compact 256GB one for $35 or so, just a matter of time. SD cards would probably be more convenient, but they aren't sadly aren't read in devices like ste…

Just remember to use those flash drives and re-copy them occasionally, like once every couple years.

The data is supposed to be valid for a decade but it is not a permanent storage system.

Re: New 5D Storage to Offer 10,000x the Density of Blu-ray

#135
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some have theorized that this is what's behind Amazon Glacier, and that they want to keep it to themselves: https://storagemojo.com/2014/04/25/amazons-glacier-secret-bd... I also crave for such cheap storage, perfect for archival/backups, especially when combined with modern snapshotting. HVDs never really materialized, despite being promising, and actually on the market at some point, IIRC: https://en.wikipedia.org/…

Is the suspect for Glacier proven?

I can't see them using optical based on their price structure (compared to bluray media costs per GB). And I doubt they own a manufacturing facility to crank out super-secret multi-terabyte-sized optical disks. However it fits right in with the cost of LTO tapes. Quick back of the envelop: Their web site says 1$ per TB per month starting cost. That is $12/TB per year. A 12 TB LTO-8 tape costs around $70 retail, which puts it at $5.60 per TB. So the cost of the media used to store customer data is paid back in 6 months, or slightly more if they are using parity tapes.

That would be my guess, the customer data hits disk first, then gets enough parity and split among enough data centers to hit their reliability target.

Re: New 5D Storage to Offer 10,000x the Density of Blu-ray

#136
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume that my S3 bucket is as close to unlimited as it gets.

Its also "unlimited" isn't it? There is no such thing as unlimted. As a subsciption you will also lose it if you stop paying.

I imagine it's as unlimited as it gets considering the sun is going to explode in some billion of years. However, I have no trust in having "unlimited" storage on a service where I'm not explicitly paying for it.

Re: New 5D Storage to Offer 10,000x the Density of Blu-ray

#137
post #7

The other day I was talking with a friend about the high cost and perceived fragility of tape drives for long term personal archival while bemoaning the loss of higher density optical storage technology. It's not easy to backup or shuffle around terabytes of personal video, audio and pictures. Hard drives aren't exactly the right media for safe deposit boxes. In the 90's I had an Iomega Ditto 250MB drive that held 12…

Some have theorized that this is what's behind Amazon Glacier, and that they want to keep it to themselves: https://storagemojo.com/2014/04/25/amazons-glacier-secret-bd... I also crave for such cheap storage, perfect for archival/backups, especially when combined with modern snapshotting. HVDs never really materialized, despite being promising, and actually on the market at some point, IIRC: https://en.wikipedia.org/…

> A new optical storage medium is long overdue. This time, it will probably be without support from the media industry.

If anything, I hope that will massively help its adoption. Blu-Ray is a DRM cess-hole of unnecessary complexity. Players – which many people bought blu-ray drives to be – have to be cryptographically secure, contain "upgrade only" firmware (to enforce key revocation mechanisms) and contain a fairly complex microprocessor. There's no official linux support.

All of these anti-features directly compete with "low cost" and "widely available". If I could put 10 TB on a DVD-sized disc, even as a WORM storage medium, and the disc was cheap, I'd buy the thing tomorrow

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