Gone are the times when we were surrounded by physical supports like CD or DVD. The rise of streaming content platforms, cloud storage services, among other factors, has meant that most of us no longer need the aforementioned disks for our daily tasks.
Despite the obvious decline of this optical storage alternative, some researchers are still dedicating a lot of time and resources to improving it. One of the most notable examples of this reality is the surprising advance that a team from the Shanghai University of Science and Technology has just achieved.
200TB on a DVD-sized optical drive
If we think about the average capacity of the legendary DVDs, we find that they can store between 4.7GB and 8.5GB. Now, can you imagine being able to store more up to 200 terabytes on an optical medium of practically the same size? This is what Chinese researchers claim to have achieved.
As explained in a scientific article published in the journal Nature, this enormous leap at the storage level was possible thanks to the development of a three-dimensional data storage architecture. As you can probably imagine, they used a lot of layers, specifically, more than a hundred layers to reach 200 TB.
Each of the layers of the disc are separated by only one micrometer, which allows, they say, that the support maintains standard dimensions, like that of traditional DVD discs. Thus, it is about a double sided discthat is, it is recorded on both sides.
Having achieved this milestone, the team is now focusing on improving its writing and reading processes, as well as optimizing energy consumption through the laser system. Shanghai University professor Wen Jing told SCMP that this technology aims to land in the enterprise market in the future.
According to researchers, one of its drives can store up to 24 times the amount of data of hard drives. today’s most advanced. At the data center level, this would greatly reduce the space needed to store large amounts of information, even offering energy benefits.
Wen goes even further and believes that this type of technology has the potential to reach the consumer market over the years. Can you imagine saving your photos and videos on one of these drives? The researcher assures that these units are very stable, you do not have to be too careful when storing them and they can last between 50 and 100 years.
