this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2025
402 points (97.2% liked)

Technology

77090 readers
3239 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

"the medium is silica crystal, similar to optical cable, it's highly durable. It's also capacious: The technology can store up to 360 TB of data on a 5-inch glass platter."

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 145 points 1 day ago (1 children)

@remindme@mstdn.social 14,000,000,000 years

[–] alias_qr_rainmaker@lemmy.world 67 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I will remember to check my lemmy inbox right after the earth gets eaten whole by the sun

[–] Fuck_u_spez_@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 day ago

And then again 13,000,000,000 years later.

[–] ieatpwns@lemmy.world 53 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (5 children)

I wonder what the read write speed is. Imagine storing your entire movie collection in a crystal the size of a coaster.

Might not be for home consumers anytime soon, article says: “In the next 18 months, the company hopes to have a field-deployable read device that customers can use to read archived data. But SPhotonix isn't presently targeting the consumer market. Kazansky estimates that the initial cost of the read device will be about $6,000 and the initial cost of the write device will be about $30,000.”

Then goes on to mention they need about 3-4 years of R&D so they can be ready to license the tech

[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 47 points 1 day ago (2 children)

If it's slow, then it's the central backup and you use anything else for regular use. Just having it as a fallback for recovery would be huge.

[–] ieatpwns@lemmy.world 37 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I’ll have a crystal collection that’s actually useful

[–] Jerkface@piefed.social 38 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

"This one's for memory."
"You actually believe in that garbage?"
"No, you don't understand..."

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] yggstyle@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago

We desperately need a non-magnetic storage for obvious reasons ... But making a new thing is freakish difficult.

[–] boring_bohr@feddit.org 40 points 1 day ago (3 children)

In case you missed it in the article, the transfer speeds are mentioned just two paragraphs prior to the one you cited:

Over the next three to four years, Kazansky said, SPhotonix aims to improve the data transfer speed of its technology from a write time of 4 megabytes per second (MBps) and read time of 30 MBps to a read/write speed of 500 MBps, which would be competitive with archival tape backup systems.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Zachariah@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That’s cheap enough a small business could do long term backups for individuals and other small businesses.

[–] Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I had the exact same idea, you could upload your data to cloud storage, and have them write it to the doodad and send it to you.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] yggstyle@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago (6 children)

That's the joke. The speed of a lot of these tech would require twice the time the data retention to write it.

We can place atoms in order on the head of this pin and store 30 Pb. Write speed? 1KB/min

load more comments (6 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] dparticiple@sh.itjust.works 40 points 1 day ago (1 children)

A friendly request - please de-clickbait your headlines and say what the material is (although you do mention it in your summary).

[–] tate@lemmy.sdf.org 40 points 1 day ago (1 children)

When a post is a link to an article, I would prefer that the post title match the article. Many news communities actually require that.

[–] dparticiple@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 day ago

Ah, righto. That was an old rule in many subreddits. Seems to vary a bit by Lemmy community, though. I just cringe at clickbait!

[–] wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world 36 points 1 day ago (10 children)

This grinds my gears any time that a product is touted as lasting X time. Did you put it through a typical use case or scenario for that X time? No? Then you cannot definitively say that it will last that long.

Based on their bullshit statement, I can last 7 years pounding someone's ass relentlessly without pause for any reason. Trust me bro.

[–] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 1 day ago (6 children)

The degradation of materials is pretty well understood. If it’s truly cut from a well known material with zero factors that could effect that degradation, it’s mostly safe to make en educated wish.

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] nexguy@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago

You can stimulate wear on different types of materials and get a general idea of how long it would last. This isn't plastic in a dvd.

[–] rikudou@lemmings.world 9 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Any volunteers for testing the claim?

[–] incompetent@programming.dev 8 points 1 day ago

I could go for a good ass pounding.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] arbitrary_sarcasm@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I mean, people do predict things based on evidence. Galileo didn't actually go to outer space and verify that the earth was going around the sun.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (6 replies)
[–] sem@piefed.blahaj.zone 29 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

How hf can you have 5D space within 3D space? This sounds like marketing bullshit.

The 5D Memory Crystal stores data by using tiny voxels – 3D pixels – in fused silica glass, etched by femtosecond laser pulses. These voxels possess "birefringence," meaning that their light refraction characteristics vary depending upon the polarization and direction of incoming light. 

That difference in light orientation and strength can be read in conjunction with the voxel's location (x, y, z coordinates), allowing data to be encoded in five dimensional space.

Oh, I get it now. It's a five-dimensional mathematical space which is given by the three physical space dimensions plus the difference in light orientation and the difference the light strength.

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 10 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

5D is the wrong term, the correct term is multiplex.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] ZoteTheMighty@lemmy.zip 25 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Excellent, I will catalog my journals of my metamorphosis into a giant worm on these.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] asbestos@lemmy.world 25 points 1 day ago (3 children)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] DaddleDew@lemmy.world 24 points 1 day ago

Best prank idea: Put someone's browsing history on one of those.

[–] AppleTea@lemmy.zip 23 points 1 day ago (3 children)

See, now this is the tech I would understand pouring billions into. Give every nation on earth a durable copy of the last 100 years of medicine, physics, biology. That's what a reasonable ruling class ought to do.

[–] rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago (2 children)

At least give them to the nations which aren't currently trying to ignore and undo the last 100 years of medicine, physics, and biology. (Sorry, United States.)

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] hardcoreufo@lemmy.world 18 points 1 day ago

Oh good it can fit the next Call of Duty game.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 22 hours ago (3 children)

Finally some worthy storage for memes!

Eat your heart out Ea-nāṣir.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 17 points 1 day ago (2 children)

But is it safe from the cats? 😼

glass shattering sounds

[–] buttfarts@lemy.lol 8 points 1 day ago

Is anything, really?

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 17 points 16 hours ago

and just like every other storage medium, it will last for eons..and die about .5 femtoseconds before you have a critical need to pull data off.

[–] sundray@lemmus.org 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Oh yeah? Well take a look at these Elder Scrolls over here.

Wait no, not literally! 😵‍💫 🔥

[–] Strobelt@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

Skyrim Silica Crystal Edition

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 15 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

prints article out

places it on an overflowing, ancient pile of documents of promising, science proved data storage methods that haven't made it to public use yet

[–] Limonene@lemmy.world 8 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Remember Memristors? They're commercially available today, at 200 EUR per bit.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Sarothazrom@lemmy.world 13 points 15 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Thteven@lemmy.world 12 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

For real, what am I going to do when the sun swallows the earth in 4 billion years?

[–] Cheems@lemmy.world 14 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

You may be entitled to compensation

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Raxiel@lemmy.world 11 points 13 hours ago (3 children)

Open AI just bought out all the glass platter production. Not only will consumers not be able to store their data for 14gy, they won't have anywhere to set down their drinks either

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 11 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Waiting for the consumer reader and writer of those things, call me then

load more comments (3 replies)

Time for some Horizon: Zero Dawn style Vantage points.

[–] Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Is it rewritable to an extensive degree? If not its just a backup medium, not day-to-day storage. Still useful, but more disposable.

[–] candyman337@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago (2 children)

This is the type of thing that would be used for storage of essential human data rather than for general data backups I think

[–] Zachariah@lemmy.world 24 points 1 day ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›