Posted on 01/06/2013 9:04:59 PM PST by LibWhacker
Most cultural institutions and research laboratories still rely on magnetic tape to archive their collections. Hitachi recently announced that it has developed a medium that can outlast not only this old-school format but also CDs, DVDs, hard drives and MP3s.
The electronics giant partnered with Kyoto University's Kiyotaka Miura to develop “semiperpetual” slivers of quartz glass that Hitachi says can preserve information for hundreds of millions of years with virtually no degradation.
The prototype is made of a square of quartz two centimeters wide and two millimeters thick. It houses four layers of dots that are created with a femtosecond laser, which produces extremely short pulses of light. The dots represent information in binary form, a standard that should be comprehensible even in the distant future and can be read with a basic optical microscope. Because the layers are embedded, surface erosion would not affect them.
The medium has a storage density slightly better than that of a CD. Additional layers could be added, which would increase the density. But the medium is more remarkable for its durability. It is waterproof and resistant to chemicals and weathering, and it was undamaged when exposed to 1,000-degree heat for two hours in a test. The results of that experiment led Hitachi to conclude that the quartz data could last hundreds of eons.
“If both readers and writers can be produced at a reasonable price, this has the potential to greatly change archival storage systems,” says Ethan Miller, director for the Center for Research in Intelligent Storage at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The medium could be ideal for safekeeping a civilization's most vital information, museum holdings or sacred texts. The question is whether the world as we know it would even last that long. “Pangaea broke up less than several hundred million years ago,” Miller adds. “Many quartz-based rocks from that time are now sand on our beaches—how would this quartz medium fare any differently?”
Human race won’t be around in 2 million years.
Hard to say that for certain, but that’s the way to bet.
Enough heat and diamond turns into a lump of graphite.
Um...what? Since when are MP3s a storage medium?
And ants will still be ants, with no interest whatsoever in DVD's.......
Yes, but since we have the best congress money can buy, it will still be under copyright!
More like a specification for how data is ordered.
As a means for explaining data sizes to people, it is a useful construct.
I used to use the Bible. The KJV in ASCII is about 5 meg. Take the total size and divide by 5M, and people could actually comprehend approximately how much space that actually is. Works about the same for mp3s. I think most companies estimate about 5M per mp3 when they say a player will hold "10,000 songs" or some such.
I agree with you as using it for a relatable measuring stick, but they listed it with actual storage mediums. The author can’t NOT know what an MP3 is, right?
Don’t know how long the MDisc will last but it is available today:
Found this:
M-Disc holds your data ‘forever,’ we go hands-on for a few minutes (video) Hands-on
Video’s removed from site...
Go here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1zKZISYjZU&feature=player_embedded
Uncle Slim!
Cousin!
Thanks.
KSL 5 reviews Millenniata's 1000 year archival disc - The M-DISC
It must be saved.....beats the rappers with what ever they do.
They are still years behind I Love Lucy broadcasts and falling behind daily.
LOL!!
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