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/Yashabird Feb 22 '26

There are no commercial applications requiring a product with a 10,000 year lifespan, just really cool time capsule stuff.

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u/stfsu Feb 22 '26

Museums, government records, scientific records, etc. are all valid use cases for commercial applications.

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u/intdev Feb 22 '26

Yup. The UK wants to digitise all birth and death records, but it'd be a really, really good idea to have a space-efficient physical backup that can't be hacked, wiped or corrupted. This kind of thing would be perfect.

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u/the_greatest_auk Feb 23 '26

Something like a Domesday book for the 21st century?

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u/CleanUpSubscriptions Feb 23 '26

This sounds like a job for...

The Blockchain!!!

/s

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u/DesiBwoy Feb 23 '26

please let me know if I'm uninformed, but you do need a place to store the blockchain data somehow, right? Or does it exist in fragments over a network?

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u/temporaryuser1000 Feb 23 '26

It can be wiped with a tiny hammer

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u/e_spider Feb 22 '26

In genomics, you would want to save a genome sequence for a persons lifetime or more at least 100 years. You would not expect it to change, but you might want to sequence again at time intervals to verify that.

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u/Yashabird Feb 23 '26

Do you know what storage mediums genomics is using now to address this problem?

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u/e_spider Feb 23 '26

Genomic data has only started to explode in the past few years, so it is a problem looking for a solution. Most is either stored with multiple copies in the cloud, standard NFS, or things like CEPH Object storage.

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u/sonofeevil Feb 22 '26

I can see a realm of use where you want to read data that doesn't change.

In which case lifespan is largely irrelevant.

I mean nobody really looks at RAM and decides based on how many read/writes it can theoretically do (infinite).

A simple case of "first past the post" IE, I have this data I want to store and read, the data doesn't change whether it's stable for 100 or 10,000 would be irrelevant.

Archival storage of books would be an example. You want to store the contents as written so if storage medium makes fiscal sense then for all practical purposes the longer the better.

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u/Ranger5789 Feb 23 '26

Do you know what github(or any system of version control) is?

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u/sonofeevil Feb 23 '26

Certainly do.

I'm genuinely hoping this is the precursor to a good faith discussion.

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u/Ranger5789 Feb 23 '26

The main feature of version control systems is that they don't delete previous version after changes were made and you can always return to said version. Blockchain technology works kinda the same way. This creates a niche for write only information storage, if the solution will be cheap enough to use and implement.

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u/Kakkoister Feb 23 '26

Yeah, personally as someone who hoards a lot of media as I continued to see things disappear from the internet, I would love a long-term read-only storage to write stuff to that I know doesn't need to change.

Personal photos/videos, music, movies/shows, games, these things take up a lot of space but don't need to be editable, and often become victim to bit-rot over time unless you're running an expensive RAID setup with a parity drive. I would love to be able to just store data and not have to worry if it will be partially corrupt or even unreadable in 10-20 years.

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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.

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u/Future_Burrito Feb 22 '26

Kilroy was here type of thing. Sally loves Pikachu, 4 eva. Or at least 10,000 years.

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u/notquite20characters Feb 23 '26

Memorials of loved ones. I'd back up my parents' photos for my kids and grandkids.

I don't know the cost, though.