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Nanotech Memory Could Hold Data For 1 Billion Years
Hugh Pickens writes "Digital storage devices have become ubiquitous in our lives but the move to digital storage has raised concerns about the lifetime of the storage media. Now Alex Zettl and his group at the University of California, Berkeley report that they have developed an experimental memory device consisting of a crystalline iron nanoparticle enclosed in a multiwalled carbon nanotube that could have a storage capacity as high as 1 terabyte per square inch and temperature-stability in excess of one billion years. The nanoparticle can be moved through the nanotube by applying a low voltage, writing the device to a binary state represented by the position of the nanoparticle. The state of the device can then be subsequently read by a simple resistance measurement while reversing the nanoparticle's motion allows a memory 'bit' to be rewritten. This creates a programmable memory system that, like a silicon chip, can record digital information and play it back using conventional computer hardware storing data at a high density with a very long lifetime. Details of the process are available at the American Chemical Society for $30."
That's great. Will the readers and systems able to display such information be around for even a hundred? Will they even accept the same power?
Length of time is a relevant restriction. While information can be lost due to becoming obsolete, corruption over time occurs. CD's and DVD's are sometimes very fickle on how long they last, and many people are using them for backups. I believe that is the main concern, thus leading to this new technology.
More interesting: now that we know how to make these, we might find these already on our planet (left by a super intelligent species who abandoned our planet a billion years ago :-)
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
A few years ago I had four hard drives fail within two weeks of each other resulting in near complete data loss. Luckily I went and bought a big HDD right after the first died so I saved something like 30% of the data because I had somewhere to put it ... but anyway
The thing is, those drives were never abused, never hurt in any way, they just simply died because they were about 5 years old. Clicking noises. Crashy computer. Bad sectors. Death.
That, to me, sounds like they were killed by an environmental factor, just not one you were aware of. It could be anything, but I'll name a few: Humidity, excessive vibration, excessive read/write cycling, excessive power up/down of motor, poor power supply, excessive heat, static electricity, or a physical abuse by somebody else. Assuming these were your only 4 drives (based on your claim of 'near complete data loss'), it's highly unlikely that all 4 drives would die at the same time due to regular wear-and-tear.
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
A little while ago there was an article on Slashdot by someone who wrote some software that played LPs using a flatbed scanner. The resolution on a cheap consumer-grade scanner is high enough that the sound is recognisable. You wouldn't want to use it for music, but to get a rough idea it's fine, and this is using hardware that a lot of people have sitting around at home. Specialist firms will use a laser to read the disks and will copy them for you - for a much larger fee.
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