How Project Silica Could Revolutionise Global Data Storage
A coaster-size glass plate could hold the key to sustainable data storage in the future.
Project Silica is Microsoft’s experimental venture into glass storage, with its silica-based glass plates being posited as a cleaner solution to data storage. It is suggested that Project Silica plates could store data for thousands of years and hold up to several terabytes of information.
Starting the project several years ago, Microsoft Research collaborated with sustainability-focused group Elire to harness this technology. Using silica-based glass plates, both organisations are creating an archive that is resistant to electromagnetic pulses and extreme temperatures, in addition to being environmentally friendly.
Also the technology is still fairly experimental, glass data storage holds great potential to revolutionise how we harness and store data. These ideas are particularly crucial now, with the amount of data needed for long-term storage continually growing.
“Glass offers cloud storage that’s efficient, sustainable and compact, maximising durability and space,” says Ant Rowstron, Distinguished Engineer at Microsoft.
Confronting high demand for data storage
Although conceptualised in 2013 by Microsoft, 5D optical data storage is an experimental idea concerning nanostructured glass. The glass would be designed to permanently record digital data using a laser writing process, with the discs using the technology capable enough to store around 360 terabytes worth of data for billions of years.
This type of technology could be revolutionary, particularly during a time where data is king. Now more than ever, businesses are buying more space for back-up data, in addition to public service organisations or governments needing to store increasing amounts of information.
For instance, demand is putting pressure on data centres as more data is required to run a broader range of services and solutions for customers.
About Project Silica
Conceptualised by Microsoft, the Project Silica system uses powerful lasers to create tiny structural changes in the glass that can be used to store data. These structural changes, or voxels, are incredibly small and can be layered up depending on individual need.
The system stores the glass panes on racks, which can then be accessed by a small robot that moves along the rails.
According to Microsoft, a two-millimetre thick piece of glass the size of a DVD would be able to store more than seven terabytes of data. Using laser writing technology that has been refined over several years, the glass plates could now be capable of lasting 10,000 years.
"We’re re-thinking how large-scale storage systems are built in order to fully exploit the properties of the glass media and create a sustainable and secure storage system to support archival storage for decades to come," the tech giant says. "We are co-designing the hardware and software stacks from scratch, from the media all the way up to the cloud user API. This includes a novel, low-power design for the media library that challenges what the robotics and mechanics of archival storage systems look like."
“Magnetic technology has a finite lifetime. You must keep copying it over to new generations of media. A hard disk drive might last five years. A tape, if you’re brave, it might last ten years. But once that lifetime is up, you’ve got to copy it over. And that, frankly, is both difficult and tremendously unsustainable if you think of all that energy and resource we’re using.”
Project Silica is focused on pioneering data storage in quartz glass in partnership with the Microsoft Azure team as it seeks to find a more sustainable way to archive data. The technology is integrated with Azure AI to decode data stored in glass, making reading and writing faster and allowing more data storage.
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