Coming Soon, 250 DVDs In a Quarter-Sized Device

Several readers have remarked on a new technique developed by scientists at UC Berkeley and University of Massachusetts Amherst that has the promise of achieving storage densities of 10 terabits per square inch. "The method lets microscopic nanoscale elements precisely assemble themselves over large surfaces. ... Xu explained that the molecules in the thin film of block copolymers — two or more chemically dissimilar polymer chains linked together — self-assemble into an extremely precise, equidistant pattern when spread out on a surface... Russell and Xu conceived of the elegantly simple solution of layering the film of block copolymers onto the surface of a commercially available sapphire crystal. When the crystal is cut at an angle... and heated to 1,300 to 1,500 degrees Centigrade... for 24 hours, its surface reorganizes into a highly ordered pattern of sawtooth ridges that can then be used to guide the self-assembly of the block polymers."

DVDs

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares how many DVDs? How many Libraries of Congress is it, that's what I want to know.

Re:DVDs

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't google provide a conversion between DVDs and Libraries of Congress?

real vs. vaporware

[rubycodez]

my mini-van full of 9-track can hold 3 TB, and is real. don't bother me with this vaporware speculation!

Re:Portable music players with huge capacities?

[zappepcs]

Yes, and a mirrored RAID-5 stack would fit inside a pack of cigarettes. A 3.5 inch bay with a little drawer that pulls out with 16 slots in it for these devices.

I wish we'd just get on with using crystals so when the aliens come we'll be able to use their technology. Of course, the down side to using the new alien technology would be all the ads for 250 DVD sized ZIP drives, and cheap home video recording equipment from X10.

Re:real vs. vaporware

[Roland Piquepaille]

my mini-van full of 9-track can hold 3 TB

Is that 8-track + parity?

Re:DVDs

[JaredOfEuropa]

I wonder how long it stays readable though, before it succumbs to some kind of rot.

I imagine the future after mankind has passed away, where some alien race stumbles upon one of these libraries with the collective wisdom of humanity preserved on it, and upon trying to make sense of the contents, instead see a message: "We cannot verify you rights to access this material; the DRM server that can validate your license appears to be down. Please try again later".

Let me explain it in slashdot terms

[SmallFurryCreature]

They mean "soon" as in the sentence "you will be having sex soon".

== never

Re:DVDs

[Albanach]

Seems like 500 TB in the library of congress

What size is that in a useful unit, like Olympic swimming pools or double-decker buses?

Re:Heated for HOW Long?!

[lucifig]

I don't know, my MacBook certainly gets close. At least it feels like it on my lap.

Re:Nice, hopefully coming soon

[reashlin]

> This seems like it has some potential. Yup, it'll be good for storing your router logs http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/09/02/20/131224.shtml?from=rss [slashdot.org] [slashdot.org]

Re:DVDs

[von_rick]

Your toasting partitions must be terribly fragmented, and you must have tons of redundant and archaic bits of crumb affecting your performance.

Re:DVDs

[CecilPL]

What they really mean is, "We're living in the past's future."

Re:Wow

[FishAdmin]

I can fit my entire porn collection on just 4 discs

Pfft, amateur.

No, no; I think he meant the professional videos, too, not just the amateur stuff.

Re:Let me explain it in slashdot terms

[Jason Levine]

You know, not all of us Slashdotters are virgins living in mom and dad's basement. Some of us are married with a few kids. Of course, then we're back to your original definition of "soon." Carry on.

Re:DVDs

[SharpFang]

Seems like its data density is 200 miliOlympicPools per kiloLibraryOfCongress.

Re:How many Humans?

[PalmHair]

Does 1 KLOC = 1024 or 1000 LOCs? Also, how does that translate to metric units - GBs. (GB - Gutenberg Library)

Re:A horse in my wallet.

[Your Pal Dave]

A horse in my wallet, now and today, that is what impresses me, really.

I dunno, any horse manages to keep a copy in the nucleus of each of its cells.

Re:A horse in my wallet.

[Yetihehe]

But the idea of a full, unabridged, complete set of information which describes a real lifeform in full, contains the program of all the life functions, all the complexity of neural system, all the mysteries of instincts and social behaviors, the complexity of senses, the strength, immunity, lifeforce of a powerful creature - all this potential, described as a bunch of files consisting of rows upon rows of letters AGCT (gzipped).

Yeah, but it takes YEARS to compile! Also if you don't compile it in a networked environment with some of the same nodes, --social-behaviors option is often ignored.

Re:DVDs

[davester666]

The size of the LOC is constantly changing. You need to specify the date/time to be used to determine the size of the LOC before you can do the conversion.

Sure, you can use the default of 'right now', but if everybody does this, it makes comparisons useless, as everybodies 'LOC' constant is different.

We must push for an international standard for the amount of data in a single 'Library of Congress'.

Once this is done, we can discuss whether we should enforce this value on the real Library of Congress, so it's contents match the size of the international standard.

Re:How many Humans?

[jshackney]

1 KLOC = 1024
1 KLoC = 1000