Scientists at the University of Southampton have devised a new way to store information. These storage devices allow the user to store information on a circular piece of glass. These pieces of glass are then able to be read and rewritten as the user chooses. These devices can store enormous amounts of information for longer than you will ever need.
5D Data Storage, How Does it Work?
To compare it to the current standards, a CD encodes and reads information by having microscopic bumps that are read as either 1’s or 0’s. These are then translated (as binary) into information. This is considered to be the standard for hard disk information. But this standard may be about to change. This new technology allows the user to write information in 5 dimensions. Hence the name, 5D data storage. Now there is a common misconception about how it writes in 5 dimensions, since we perceive most things in only 4 dimensions. This includes our X,Y,Z cartesian coordinates, and time. But since this device does not control time nor is the information stored in a time stasis, what is the fourth (and fifth) dimension? Well, as you can see in the image above, it stores the information on three different layers (which gives us our 3rd dimension). This, similar to an old-school hologram, can be read from different angles allowing different information to be seen. This information can also be written at both the macroscopic and microscopic level allowing for different information to be perceived based on the magnification. This brings us up to our count of 5 dimensions.
What are the Specs?
At only one inch in diameter these disks can store up to 360 Terabytes of information. The creators of this technology also estimate that the information will be able to be stored for 13.8 billion years. That means that this information could theoretically outlive humanity, if scientists are correct.
Comments and Opinions
This 5D data storage capability is an amazing new technology that will be able to convert regular glass into mass capacity storage devices. I think this technology is amazing and has the ability to become the new standard for storing mass amounts of information.
This is really cool. Since standard re-writable discs have been on their way out for a while now, and we’ve been switching over to flash storage, ultimately we won’t be able to make flash storage that much smaller. Adding dimensions like that mentioned in this glass disc is really the only way to fit more information in a pre-determined space once we reach the limit of how small we can create flash storage internals. I feel like the biggest hill we’d have to climb to reach are the readers for this disc however, as handling different angles without moving pieces (ideally) would require a sophisticated system.