Southampton University Creates 5D Storage Disc That Can Store 360TB Data

The mindblowing invention will revolutionise the way we store data

Last year the researchers came up with a processor capable of transmitting data using light. Now, United Kingdom’s Southampton University created an optical disc that is regarded as a huge breakthrough in storage solutions. The quartz storage disc can store 360TB data for more than a billion years.

In a breakthrough achievement by the Southampton University in the United Kingdom, a new nanostructured quartz disc has been created which can store up to 360 TB of data. The disc can last for up to billions of years. This makes it a monumental discovery for the field of data storage solutions.

The disc has been created by scientists of the Optoelectronics Research Centre at Southampton University. The scientists used nanostructured glass to develop recording and retrieval processes of this 5D digital data by femtosecond laser writing. The femtosecond laser pulses were used by researchers for the purpose of writing data in the quartz’s 3D structure at Nano-scale.

The three layers of nanostructured dots created by the pulses are separated by just five microns. Another light pulse and its recorded polarisation with the sample can be used to observe changes in the structure.

After the methods of creating and observing changes in the structure of the disc were tested, researchers then began testing the credibility of their invention. The first thing that they stored on this 5D disc was the King James Bible. Following this was the writing of other works of prominence like Newton’s Opticks and the Magna Carta and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on a small glass disc.

It was this testing that led the scientists to deduce that up to 360 TB of data could be stored on a single quartz piece. This information was revealed by the density of data stored on these discs. The other piece of information that was revealed was that the data was utterly stable, able to withstand temperatures up to 350 degrees Fahrenheit for up to 14 billion years.

This news couldn’t have come at a better time when the world is crying out for better storage structures. Almost everything is being moved on to cloud storages due to the shortage of storage space, but this discovery by scientists from Southampton University could be a game changer.