Lifespan of 10,000 Years, No Electricity Needed... Glass Piece Containing '1,750 Movies' [Tech Talk]

Hard Disk Made of Glass
Developed by MS Elite Research Team
Data Engraved and Stored with Light

Last October, the American big tech company Microsoft (MS) published a very unique paper. It was about a technology that stores computer data inside quartz glass (high-purity glass free of impurities). Simply put, it is a hard disk made of glass.

'Project Silica' developed by Microsoft Research [Image source=MS]

This research project is called 'Project Silica.' The rectangular glass structure held by the researcher in the photo contains 7 terabytes (TB) of data. That is equivalent to the capacity of 1,750 4-gigabyte (GB) movies. If this project is commercialized, the entire data storage industry could be transformed.

'Glass Hard Disk' Developed by MS's Elite Research Team

MS is famous for Office, Windows operating system (OS), and Azure cloud, but it is also a company that diligently invests in advanced scientific technology. For over a decade, it has established a future technology research division called 'MS Research Group' and provides astronomical research funding annually.

MS Research is a small elite research group consisting of about 650 scientists and engineers, of whom 210 work at a research facility near the University of Cambridge in the UK. The project they have been researching for nearly five years is Project Silica, a glass-based data storage system.

Simply put, it is physically engraving data inside glass fragments using light to record information. [Image source=MS YouTube]

The operating principle of Project Silica is somewhat complex. Today, the most commonly used data storage systems are semiconductor-based. However, Silica stores data using 'light.'

First, a femtosecond laser (a scientific laser device that emits powerful pulses for an extremely short time) is fired into the silica. The part where the laser hits slightly changes its properties, creating a kind of three-dimensional lattice pattern called a voxel. Silica stores data by converting computer data into voxels and densely engraving them inside the glass. The capacity that can fit inside one silica glass is up to 7TB.

So, how do you retrieve the stored data? A microscope is used. A microscope connected to a computer reads the ultra-fine voxel patterns and decodes them into data. Through this series of processes, Silica functions similarly to a hard disk drive (HDD) or solid-state drive (SSD).

No Electricity Needed and a Lifespan of 10,000 Years

Then, why did MS bother to create such a complex data storage system? It is because of the inherent limitations of HDDs. Nowadays, SSDs are mainly used in general PCs, but data centers that need to store large amounts of data still primarily use HDDs. MS, which operates Azure, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) of Amazon are major customers.

Unlike home PCs that primarily use solid-state drives (SSDs), data centers still use hard drives.
[Image source: Screenshot from Amazon homepage]

The problem is that HDDs do not have a very long lifespan. Hard drives usually start to become unstable after about 3 to 5 years of use, and in the worst case, they break down and all the data inside is lost. Those who used computers with HDDs in the past have probably experienced having to run formatting programs or buy new ones because the hard drive broke.

The lifespan limitation of hard drives has not been completely overcome yet. When we use storage solutions like Google Drive, we tend to think the stored data is 'safe,' but in reality, data center operators fight a fierce battle against time every day. They have to back up customers' data and transfer it to new products before the HDD breaks down. For this reason, data centers also use tape-based storage systems, which are much slower than HDDs but more durable.

A data storage center made of silica. Each glass piece displayed on the shelf stored 8 terabytes (TB) of capacity.
[Image source=MS]

On the other hand, the lifespan of one silica glass is estimated to be about 10,000 years. This means that once data is stored, it can be used semi-permanently. Moreover, unlike other semiconductor-based computer chips, the Silica project does not consume any power at all. Looking at the recently revealed Silica storage system by MS, no part except the 'picker' robot?which takes out the necessary glass pieces and moves them to the decoding microscope?uses electricity. This reduces the operational burden on data centers and is also environmentally friendly.

Potential to Cause a Paradigm Shift in the Data Center Memory Industry

Of course, the Silica project has not yet reached full commercialization. The process of reading voxel patterns engraved with light as computer data was too complicated and time-consuming. However, recently, MS Research researchers succeeded in increasing the data reading speed of Silica to 30 mbp/s using artificial intelligence (AI). Although it has not yet reached the average speed of HDDs, at least a breakthrough has been made.

MS plans to include the Silica storage system in Azure services within the next 3 to 5 years. If the data writing/reading speed of Silica approaches the level of commercial HDDs, the computer memory industry will experience a paradigm shift. A cheap hard disk that can store data almost permanently is the dream of every IT company.