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New storage disk with "million-year" lifespan?

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Post by Ben Reilly Tue Oct 22, 2013 9:29 pm

Back in 1956, IBM introduced the world’s first commercial computer capable of storing data on a magnetic disk drive. The IBM 305 RAMAC used fifty 24-inch discs to store up to 5 MB, an impressive feat in those days. Today, however, it’s not difficult to find hard drives that can store 1 TB of data on a single 3.5-inch disk.

But despite this huge increase in storage density and a similarly impressive improvement in power efficiency, one thing hasn’t changed. The lifetime over which data can be stored on magnetic discs is still about a decade.

That raises an interesting problem. How are we to preserve information about our civilisation on a timescale that outlasts it? In other words, what technology can reliably store information for 1 million years or more?

Today, we get an answer thanks to the work of Jeroen de Vries at the University of Twente in the Netherlands and a few pals. These guys have designed and built a disk capable of storing data over this timescale. And they’ve performed accelerated ageing tests which show it should be able to store data for 1 million years and possibly longer.
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/520541/million-year-data-storage-disk-unveiled/
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Post by Lurker Tue Oct 22, 2013 9:46 pm

We put too much faith in modern electronics. That faith is always biting us in the ass either with simple hardware failure or data corruption or loss. Our future doesn't look too good for archaeologists. There will be little value for them to find to teach them anything about our history. All digital media will be gone unless a storage medium is designed that will save our data forever. I hope this new disc does what they say. They seem to be getting away from hardware discs and going to SSDs, though. Cloud computing is another folly that puts responsibility into the hands of people you don't know and can't trust to protect and store your data. No thanks. We are losing our written and spoken language to fragile technology, too. Leet speak, text speak and no hand-written language. We are dumbing down thanks to technology. It's sad and scary.
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Post by Ben Reilly Tue Oct 22, 2013 11:20 pm

All I know is, nobody better burn "White Chicks" to the million-year disk ...
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Post by veya_victaous Tue Oct 22, 2013 11:31 pm

it is not as bad as it seems
I have Hard drives Older than 10 years that still work

I believe IF the electronic records are to survive it will be with a group of people that do maintenance on them. Technology does not build itself there are people that do understand how to maintain it. a Hard drive is still more resilient than a piece of paper. Paper does not last long unless it is cared for, I am sure the vast majority of books have decomposed with age just like the vast majority of the electronic medium with disappear...... but despite the odds some have/will make it due to the care of long dead academics and librarians

the thing is Even if the magnetic fields stay in the same place (0 and 1 are still readable) if they don’t know how to decipher them it is useless, and it is infinitely more complex and less logical than trying to translate hieroglyphs which was impossible without the Rosetta stone.
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