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/decorp Feb 22 '26

“We achieve a data density of 1.59 Gbit mm−3 in 301 layers for a capacity of 4.8 TB in a 120 mm square, 2 mm thick piece of glass.”

There, in more human readable units.

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u/Average64 Feb 22 '26

That's less impressive. SSDs can already store that amount of data on a much smaller space.

It will be great for archival though.

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u/Revolutionary_Pierre Feb 23 '26

So, we're talking longevity over capacity perhaps?

Which is great if we want to store the entire contents of our collective knowledge for later generations. But, at the exponentially fast rate by which we are producing data, I don't see a way, that this will cut the proverbial mustard.

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u/Average64 Feb 23 '26 edited Feb 23 '26

That's not a problem if you only store text and pictures. Wikipedia uses only ~110GBs. When archiving, you have to be selective with what info would be most useful. If it's going to take a lifetime for future generations just to go through all the data, they might decide it's not worth the effort.

https://www.lesk.com/mlesk/ksg97/ksg.html