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12.8 Petabytes, You Say?
MadUndergrad writes "Dr. Jonathan Spanier from Drexel University has come up with a novel way to greatly increase data storage density: water. Specifically, they propose using hydroxyl ions to stabilize minute ferroelectric wires. These wires could be many times smaller than what is possible today, enabling data densities in the neighborhood of 12-13 PB per cubic centimeter. While there are still many problems to be resolved before drives using these can be manufactured this technology does seem promising. For one thing, it would be non-volatile, but could apparently be made to act as RAM. The fact that this is coming out of a university gives me hope that this technology won't turn out to be just so much vapor."
To me this idea sounds a little wet.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
I did not read the article, but I would imagine the usage would be limited by temperature ranges, for that matter, even simple exposure of the components.
Imagine a device with this technology submitted to freezing temperatures?
It'd be pretty annoying if you came back from a run/heavy night's drinking (delete as suits you) and accidentally drank the backup of all your MP3s and pr0n to rehydrate you...
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
I can't believe they would be so irresponsible as to use dihydrogen monoxide for data storage. That stuff is deadly!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
this technology won't turn out to be just so much vapor.
Until the heat sink fails.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
"The fact that this is coming out of a university gives me hope that this technology won't turn out to be just so much vapor."
Um... the fact that this is coming from a university suggests to ME that it might be highly impractical, but of some academic interest.
I mean, "university" may rank above "wacky fly-by-night startup looking to fleece investors" on the ol' Trust-o-meter, but the fact that a few academics are studying something certainly doesn't mean it's even potentially viable as a commercial product.
the water will have to be de-mineralized to eliminate conductivity.
whats left is oxygen and hydrogen, with the electricity in the wires running through the wires be strong enough to create electrolysis?
thats not what i'd call non-volatile.
Enjoy Every Sandwich
Prof. Jonathan Spanier is in Materials Engineering, so I would bet this is a lab demonstration of an effect that might be developed into a technology, not something likely to appear on store shelves in a year or two. Still, it is an important first step in that direction.
Sorry to be so cynical, but why do you put more merit behind something from a University? They're competing for research dollars and don't actually have to produce anything that works in the field or that they'll have to support for many years. In much the same way that corporations extend/enhance the truth to attract customers, Universities extend/enhance the truth to attract grants.
Despite what my tone may reflect, I'm very curious to your thought process.
"The fact that this is coming out of a university gives me hope that this technology won't turn out to be just so much vapor."
You haven't attended university on our planet, have you?
Best tasting mineral water I've ever had! Has a funny aftertaste though...
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Like Pons & Fleishman's cold fusion? Like the recent Korean cloning fiasco? Like the forestry research papers that were pulled because of political and corporate pressure? Like so many others that have been in the recent news?
Problem is that scientists and researchers can be corrupted by fame, fortune or pressure just like other humans.
I'm not saying that this technology is bogus - I know nothing about the technology or the people involved. But the fact that it comes from a university doesn't offer any special guarantees in my book.
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"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Imagine an iPod playing music for 100 millennia without repeating a single song
Thats great until during that 100 millenia you encounter the next Ice Age, it freezes stopping its data transfer to only playing one song, "I Got You Babe" by Sonny & Cher
- for eternity.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
It sounds like the magnetic core memory of the old days.
Sweet Jesus, is this article's sole purpose to be fodder for bad vaporware jokes?
Start cranking 'em out, folks.
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called that spreadsheet!!
.xls files containing "2006 budget"
User: Hey Clippy search for
Clippy: I see, you want me to spend the rest of eternity searching 13 petabytes for your stupid spreadsheet??! I quit!! User: This maybe the first effective way to get rid of that little twerp.
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
You underestimate just how much pr0n I have, my good Spade.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
The fact that this is coming out of a university gives me hope that this technology won't turn out to be just so much vapor.
<rant>i don't think the poster has worked with many universities. my experience with using them as subs on r & d projects has been highly mixed — occasionally, you'll find a group that just rocks. the problem is that the remaining 7-9 out of 10 times, you end up just replacing the components that the university was supposed to deliver because they either (a) failed to deliver anything at all (not uncommon) or (b) delivered code that was so horrendously broken that it was less effort to redo their pieces than to shepherd them through the process of fixing things.</rant>
before i'm flamed to death: please note that i didn't say all universities suck (and in particularly, i didn't imply that your university sucks).
Does this mean that the operating temp range will be 32F - 212F (0C-100C)?
I would have said, If this is vaporware I'd be steamed...
I suppose this will give a whole new meaning to the term "The computer froze up"!
Will we litterally need a bit bucket for overflow?
I better stop now.
Without commenting on the competence of the researcher, whoever wrote the press release doesn't have the first idea what they're talking about.
"Ferroelectric materials possess spontaneous and reversible electric dipole moments. These dipole moments are times when the material gains a charge, in this case an electric one. For example, the Earth's magnetic field generates a dipole moment that causes compasses to face north"
First sentence is correct. Second sentence is baloney. A dipole moment is not anything to do with time, and an electric dipole moment does not mean a material gains a net charge, although it might correspond to a charge developing on a certain surface. Third sentence: the dipole moments associated with the earth's magnetization are nothing to do with the dipole moments in a ferroelectric material. The former are the result of intrinsic magnetic moments in atoms, the latter the result of differing charge distributions in materials. Similar names, completely different things.
Here is the exact text:
Btw... I find it creepy that googling this returned six results.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
In the storage world it matters little how densely you can STORE things. It matters how densely you can READ things.
If you stacked the platters you'd get a lot of density but you can't read it because the arm won't fit between two touching plates.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
that is a very valid point, i work in a nanotech lab. we are working on a project invoving CNTs carbon nanotubes) electrified in water. because of nanotube unique properties, any electrical field is greatly amplified. the small surface area of the nanotubes creates areas of extremely high voltage that can easily cause electrolysis.
A robot's ability to speak of Nazis grows by a factor of 2 every 18 months. -roman_mir
...But for some reason when I plugged it in my computer started shooting sparks out of the USB port.
What did I do wrong?
The fact that this is coming out of a university gives me hope that this technology won't turn out to be just so much vapor.
I was going to write just how incorrect this statement is, but after reading previoius comments, I feel I need to defend academic research instead of bash it.
The reason why academic research is not likely to pump out an actual product is because it is not the goal of academic research to create a commercially viable project. The goal is usually to explore the basic underpinnings of something of interest, in this case the possibility of hydroxyl ions to stabilize minute ferroelectric wires. Corporations come along later and add engineering to those principles and produce the products we use.
Those who are saying that academic researchers are con men in search of funding are overstating their case. There are examples of cheating and overstating cases in academic research but they are rare. There are also examples of corporations doing basic research, but they are becoming more rare, too. Bell Labs has all but disappeared, IBM hasn't won my Nobels lately.
Academic research does what it does very very well and quite cheaply (see how much a grad student makes compared to well, anything, really). Corporatations do their research well, too. Just don't confuse the two.
Jack
So if you don't want to lose the contents of your RAM I guess you just stick it in the freezer?
Do I see on the horizon a new implementation of PERL's freeze() and thaw() ??
Meh - maybe in PERL 6...
Second serious reply to my post, so I guess I have to say it: Dihydrogen Monoxide is WATER. The joke is that if you make something sound scary enough, in vague enough terms, people will believe it's a threat. I thought everyone here would get the joke, but apparently not.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The Cubic Centimeters are the real secret to high density storage!
They just give you lots of little boxes to pour your data into. When you fill up about 10 of 'em, you just slap some duck tape on them, scribble a half-ass lable with a tiny magic marker, pack it into your Tonka truck with about 10 others, and push it to the other side of the data center. I call this last part the Tonka Transport Layer (TTL), and it offers the highest transfer rates in the history of networking!
The RFC requires that you make 'VROOM! VROOM!' noises and smash it into at least one cow-orker's foot along the way. My 5 year old has already mastered this technology.