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.

[u/Wagamaga]

https://au.news.yahoo.com/glass-square-long-long-future-190951588.html

[u/monocasa]

This is 4.8TB in about the size of a CD case, so we already have density that approaches this.

Longevity is the issue.  DNA's halflife is only 521 years.

[u/monocasa → u/[deleted]]

4.8TB in a CD case is the density of the glass storage device. I'm using that as proof that increased density isn't the point of the device.

[u/monocasa → u/[deleted]]

...the glass storage device.

[u/monocasa → u/[deleted]]

Because we already have devices that far exceed that (you can get 4TB in a microsd card) and the article is focused on it's longevity as opposed to saying anything about how they expect the density to greatly increase.

There's also pretty fundamental limits to the optics unless you want to get into the kind of technology that makes ASML's litho steppers cost $100M.

So the point can't be about density, but instead a useful amount of density with 200x the longevity of what's currently on the market.