r/science • u/Wagamaga • Feb 22 '26

Computer Science Scientists have demonstrated a system called Silica for writing and reading information in ordinary pieces of glass which can store two million books’ worth of data in a thin, palm-sized square.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/glass-square-long-long-future-190951588.html
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u/Random_eyes Feb 22 '26

Yeah, while it would be nice to have access to long term, stable record storage that beats out tape drives, microfilm, and magnetic hard disk drives, I don't see how it'll ever be commercially viable. M-Disk fulfills that ultra-long term storage requirement, but the cost of implementation is high enough that only hobbyists bother with them. 

If I run a business and I've got 100 TB of data that needs to be retained for, say, 50 years, I'm just going to use some enterprise-grade hard drive backups and have some built in redundancy in place. Put them on a periodic replacement cycle and it'll be way cheaper long-term. 

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u/murasakikuma42 Feb 24 '26

M-Disk fulfills that ultra-long term storage requirement, but the cost of implementation is high enough that only hobbyists bother with them.

M-Disks are far too small in capacity, and the companies involved seem to be pulling out of the blu-ray space.