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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)

#31

Post by technothrasher »

benj111 wrote: post #20

Can I rant about the 5D? "It's been dubbed five-dimensional (5D) digital data because, in addition to the position of the data, the size and orientation are extremely important too" Orientation is inherently important anyway. Have you ever tried reading a book upside down, and what does size bring? Other than lowering density. And obviously position is important, it's the difference between data and randomness.

Yes, I've tried reading a book upside down. Reading speed decreased a bit but the information is the same regardless of orientation.

Re: Glass discs that can store 360TB and remain intact for billions of years (2016)

#32

Post by sudhirj »

13of40 wrote: post #19

So 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.

Re: Glass discs that can store 360TB and remain intact for billions of years (2016)

#33

Post by jarfil »

YayamiOmate wrote: post #18

I 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…

Heads is a low resolution dimension, so CHS should probably be more like 2.5D. Magnetic orientation is just binary, so not a dimension.

The 5D in the article is kind of fishy, but in this case size and orientation are more of a low resolution dimension like multi-level cells in a flash drive.

Re: Glass discs that can store 360TB and remain intact for billions of years (2016)

#34

Post by v7p1Qbt1im »

vmurthy wrote: post #10

Given that the sun will die in about 5B Years, this is a bit of a gimmick :-D

In 5 billion years, humanity will either not exist anymore, or will be a Type III+ civilization. We certainly won't be impacted by anything that might happen to the sun in terms of its life cycle. A coronal mass ejection might be a problem at some point though.

Re: Glass discs that can store 360TB and remain intact for billions of years (2016)

#36

Post by Wowfunhappy »

simonh wrote: post #21
supermatt wrote: post #16

Im 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.

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.

Re: Glass discs that can store 360TB and remain intact for billions of years (2016)

#37

Post by yorwba »

lwhi wrote: post #11

I remember chatting to someone working on the project at the University of Southampton years ago .. I think it was back in 2004. Great to hear it's come to fruition. The length of time this type of project takes amazes me.

This is about research published in 2013: https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/364916/

It was recycled for a university press release in 2016: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2016/02/5d-data-storage-u...

Then that press release was recycled for this HN submission.

Re: Glass discs that can store 360TB and remain intact for billions of years (2016)

#38

Post by dosshell »

YayamiOmate wrote: post #18

I 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…

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.

Re: Glass discs that can store 360TB and remain intact for billions of years (2016)

#40

Post by lwhi »

yorwba wrote: post #37
lwhi wrote: post #11

I remember chatting to someone working on the project at the University of Southampton years ago .. I think it was back in 2004. Great to hear it's come to fruition. The length of time this type of project takes amazes me.

This is about research published in 2013: https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/364916/ It was recycled for a university press release in 2016: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2016/02/5d-data-storage-u... Then that press release was recycled for this HN submission.

In that case, I'll be amazed about the lifecycle of a news release instead ;)
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