Video of ceramic storage system prototype surfaces online — 10,000TB cartridges bombarded with laser rays could become mainstream by 2030, making slow hard drives and tapes obsolete
Cerabyte has released a video It shows the potential of the highly anticipated ceramic-based data storage system that promises to revolutionize the way organizations store data in data centers in the future.
Unlike data typically stored on today's best hard drives and SSDs, Cerabyte wants to use ceramic material, combined with glass, to hold mountains of data. For example, it wants to build palm-sized cartridges that can store 10,000 TB of data.
This is done by applying layers of a special type of ceramic to a surface 300 micrometers thick, on top of a glass base. Data can be written at GBps speeds, with an areal density of TB/square centimeter – far greater than the current HDD density of just 0.02 TB/square centimeter.
Now, hot on the heels of important information that emerged last monththe company has launched a demonstration of a fully operational prototype system.
How does Cerebyte's ceramic-based storage work?
This demo system consists of a single read-write rack for storage accessibility and multiple library racks. The company used only commercial off-the-shelf equipment to build it.
Each cartridge consists of a data carrier that uses a glass layer, similar to Corning's Gorilla Glass, with a thin, dark ceramic layer as a data storage medium. These cartridges are kept in a robot library. When data needs to be written, the cartridge is moved from the library rack to the read-write rack. The cartridge is opened and the data carrier comes out, which is placed on a podium.
Data is written by two million laser beams that punch nanoscale QR code-like patterns into the surface of the media. The laser pulse is sharpened by a digital micromirror device and formed on the surface of the data carrier by microscope optics. This process imprints holes – or no holes – on the surface layer, which represents binary information.
These patterns are written on the forward movement and then verified by the microscopic camera on a backward movement when it returns to the original position. When the data carrier has been completely written, it is placed back in the cartridge and transferred back to the library.
The reading is similar, but this time only the microscope camera is enabled to read the QR code-like patterns on the storage medium, reading the data in both directions.
This first demonstration unit won't compete with the very best data storage units out there, but the company plans to scale up its ceramic-based data storage system.
The company claims that it is a cost-effective, fast and scalable technology for future data storage because it does not use energy to store data and it can last more than 5,000 years because it is made of ceramic. The best hard drives And best SSDson the other hand, need to be replaced every few years.