Store the data of 1000 Blu-rays in an object as large as a DVD. Technological discovery by a Chinese team
Imagine a DVD-sized disk capable of storing more than 10,000 times the data of a Blu-ray Disc , a feat that could lead to big savings in storage space and energy in an age of big data and artificial intelligence.
A Chinese research team said it has developed technology that allows it to store a huge amount of data – equivalent to around 5.8 billion indexed web pages – in a device the size of a desktop computer. “This technology enables exabit-level storage by stacking nanoscale disks in arrays, which is essential in large data centers with limited space,” the team wrote in a paper published Thursday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature.
The scientists come from Shanghai University of Science and Technology, Beijing University, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics and the Photochemistry Laboratory, both under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
In terms of data storage units, 1,024 gigabytes equals 1 terabyte, 1,024 terabytes make 1 petabit, and 1,024 petabytes make 1 exabit.
According to market intelligence provider International Data Corporation, the global data volume is expected to reach 175 zettabytes by 2025. One zettabyte corresponds to 1 trillion gigabytes.
Optical data storage (ODS) is a light-based storage method commonly used in DVDs. It is cost-efficient and durable, but its capacity is limited because it usually stores data in a single layer.
In the new study , the Chinese team said they created a three-dimensional architecture to store data across hundreds of layers instead of just one, resulting in optical data storage capacity reaching the level of petabits.
The disc's layers were spaced just 1 micrometer apart, allowing it to remain the same thickness as a regular DVD. The scientists wrote and read the data using laser beams.
“The ODS has a capacity of up to 1.6 [petabits] for a DVD-sized disc area thanks to recording 100 layers on both sides of our ultra-thin single disc,” the researchers said, adding that It can store 24 times the data of today's most advanced hard drives. “It will then be possible to build an exabit-level data center inside a room rather than in a stadium-sized space, by stacking 1,000 petabit-level nanoscale disks together… resulting in a large number of cost-effective exabit data centers advantageous."
Today's data centers require large amounts of energy to operate, while internal devices generate immense heat that requires even more energy to cool. In China, the National Energy Administration said total electricity consumption by the country's data centers will be 270 billion kilowatt-hours in 2022, nearly triple the power generated in the same year by the Three Gorges hydropower plants , the largest electricity generation plant in the world. Consumption amounts to about 3% of China's total electricity consumption.
The team said the new technology could minimize the need for data migration, a complicated process that data centers must perform every three to 10 years, putting data at risk of tampering or loss.
One of the corresponding authors, Wen Jing, a professor at Shanghai University of Science and Technology, said the new technology will provide more energy-efficient data storage.
“Energy will only be needed when data is written to or read from disk, but not when it is stored, thanks to the inherent properties of ODS,” Wen said. The disks are also very stable and do not require any particular storage requirements.” The new drive is expected to last 50 to 100 years, unlike a hard drive that requires moving data to a new device every 5 to 10 years.
We remind you that the data written on DVDs are not eternal, but are still subject to deterioration. The new system studied by the Chinese team, being able to store an enormously greater quantity of data, still makes storage and transfers easier.
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The article Store the data of 1000 Blu-rays in an object as large as a DVD. Technological discovery by a Chinese team comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/memorizzare-in-un-oggetto-grande-come-un-dvd-i-dati-di-1000-blu-ray-scoperta-tecnologica-di-un-team-cinese/ on Fri, 23 Feb 2024 06:15:22 +0000.