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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

#4

Post by Peroni »

stephengillie wrote: post #3
twelvechairs wrote: post #2

Sounds great - but maybe I'll wait until it can be done on a material thats not incredibly brittle and thus easy to accidentally break...

Like pyrex? Edit: Like borosilicate glass?

Pyrex is a brand. The material you are referring to is borosilicate glass.

Re: Hitachi presents a storage medium that should last forever

#6

Post by bad_alloc »

Just to be a smartass: I guess it will last for a significant timespan, but not actually "forever" unless Hitachi also finds out how to reverse entropy or how to leave this universe. If they don't a lot of stuff might get their data, like proton-decay, the upcoming black hole era or the fact that everything is liquid on very large timescales. Further reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future#Futu... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_decay http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_fate_of_the_universe

Re: Hitachi presents a storage medium that should last forever

#7

Post by StavrosK »

bad_alloc wrote: post #6

Just to be a smartass: I guess it will last for a significant timespan, but not actually "forever" unless Hitachi also finds out how to reverse entropy or how to leave this universe. If they don't a lot of stuff might get their data, like proton-decay, the upcoming black hole era or the fact that everything is liquid on very large timescales. Further reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future#Fu…

It's for small values of "forever".

Re: Hitachi presents a storage medium that should last forever

#9

Post by simonh »

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last longer than LPs, CDs etc, but it will do nothing at all to remedy the actual reasons these older media are being superseded.

Edit: I'm reminded of the old Domesday Book BBC project that recorded everything on laser discs and played the data on BBC microcomputers. The discs are still fine, but it got to the point where there were no machines left physically capable of playing them. There was a project to fix that but I don't know how it went.

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