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Hitachi presents a storage medium that should last forever

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Re: Hitachi presents a storage medium that should last forever

#21

Post by pmjordan »

cturner wrote: post #14
simonh wrote: post #9

re the original AP report, people aren't replacing LPs and CDs because the media are wearing out, they're replacing them because newer media have higher storage densities, are more physically convenient and in some cases because they allow higher fidelity recording. Yes this medium will last longer than LPs, CDs etc, but it will do nothing at all to remedy the actual reasons these older media are being superseded. Ed…

The second part of your comment is interesting. Can electronics be designed in a way so that it has a very long life? The idea - hard-code information to silicon and preserve it. e.g. Chips on PCBs that are completely encased in substrate. Provide fused power prongs and a serial port interface to this. Future systems can integrate to this to consume the data.

Can electronics be designed in a way so that it has a very long life?

NASA seem to be pretty good at that. I guess it's a question of cost more than anything else.

Re: Hitachi presents a storage medium that should last forever

#23

Post by rsaarelm »

huffman wrote: post #11

Maybe the medium will last longer, but isn't "If you have a computer with the right software and an optical microscope hooked up to it" a big part of the data decay problem on floppy disks etc.? Even if the data is there, it's useless without the right software/hardware to read it.

If it's actual visual dots on the glass, it sounds like you'd just need to figure out how to get a good enough photograph of the thing to see the dots in and spend an afternoon whipping up an image processing script in Python to convert the dots to binary code. This sounds a lot simpler than whatever would be involved in setting up the apparatus to read bits of volatile magnetic media where you'd have to interact more closely with the media, be more mindful of not accidentally destroying the stored data and rely on much less intuitive physics than looking at a thing through a microscope for the recovery process.

Re: Hitachi presents a storage medium that should last forever

#24

Post by pja »

simonh wrote: post #9

re the original AP report, people aren't replacing LPs and CDs because the media are wearing out, they're replacing them because newer media have higher storage densities, are more physically convenient and in some cases because they allow higher fidelity recording. Yes this medium will last longer than LPs, CDs etc, but it will do nothing at all to remedy the actual reasons these older media are being superseded. Ed…

The data has all been recovered: There's a full implementation of the Domesday Book project on a large touch-surface table at the National Museum of Computing ( http://www.tnmoc.org/ ) at Bletchley Park, as well as a couple of the original readers.

Here's an article about the new hardware: http://www.tnmoc.org/news/news-releases/bbc-domesday-touchta...

I saw it in action on a work trip to TNMOC earlier this year: it's quite nifty.

Re: Hitachi presents a storage medium that should last forever

#29

Post by brazzy »

fratido wrote: post #8

How about a disc that is made of glass, has a capacity of a DVD and can be read by standard dvd players and can be bought today, for a mere of €160? THIS is amazing. http://www.syylex.com/index.php/home_english.html

The reflective layer is still made of metal and the two layers are glued together. You have to take the maker's words on how durable those actually are.

Re: Hitachi presents a storage medium that should last forever

#30

Post by brazzy »

pmjordan wrote: post #21
cturner wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second part of your comment is interesting. Can electronics be designed in a way so that it has a very long life? The idea - hard-code information to silicon and preserve it. e.g. Chips on PCBs that are completely encased in substrate. Provide fused power prongs and a serial port interface to this. Future systems can integrate to this to consume the data.

Can electronics be designed in a way so that it has a very long life? NASA seem to be pretty good at that. I guess it's a question of cost more than anything else.

The oldest stuff NASA has out there is what, 35 years old? Hardly a "very long life". And it's floating in vacuum, which is pretty much the ideal storage environment. Making stuff last in space is much easier than on Earth (and much easier than getting it there, of course).
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