Dec16
SPhotonix claims that its storage medium, a fused silica glass platter dubbed the 5D Memory Crystal, has moved from laboratory research closer to real-world deployment, with plans to pilot cold storage systems in data centers over the next two years. A single 5-inch glass disc is designed to hold up to 360 terabytes (TB) of data and is claimed to be stable for 13.8 billion years.
The analysis reveals that this technology is strictly focused on cold storage and long-term archiving, suitable for situations where access latencies of 10 seconds or more are acceptable. This constraint is necessary because current prototypes achieve slow performance: write speeds are around 4 MBps, and read speeds are roughly 30 MBps, which places the technology well below existing archival systems today. SPhotonix has published a roadmap targeting sustained read and write speeds of 500 MBps within three to four years to improve this.
Nonetheless, this is a breakthrough in long-term data storage resilience and density. The critical determining factor for the 5D glass becoming a viable solution in modern data centers, rather than just an archival oddity, rests on its ability to meet the ambitious roadmap of reaching 500 MBps sustained speeds within three to four years.
https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/storage/sphotonix-pushes-5d-glass-storage-toward-data-center-pilots
Keywords: Analytics, Big Data, Cloud
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