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Data Storage

Cerabyte Ceramic Storage Poised To Usher In 'Yottabyte Era' (tomshardware.com) 43

Cerabyte, a technology startup pioneering ceramic nanolayer-based storage, claims it will usher in the "Yottabyte Era" and disrupt the $500 billion storage market in the process. Tom's Hardware reports: More specifically, its roadmaps sketch out CeraMemory cartridges (2025-30) storing between 10 PB and 100 PB, and its CeraTape (2030-35) with up to 1 EB capacity per tape. According to the startup, these new formats are poised to address density, performance, and access paradigms, as well as the cost and sustainability demands of datacenters. Cerabyte, a German storage startup, has published an abstract from its upcoming presentation at the 2023 Storage Developer Conference in Fremont, California (h/t Blocks and Files). Here, for the first time, it will detail how it will introduce CeraMemory with inorganic nanolayers, using 50-100 atoms thick ceramics to store information. Scaling ceramic data storage technology from 100nm to 3nm bit sizes will scale the corresponding data density from GB/cm2 to units measured in TB/cm2, reckons Cerabyte.

To record data to CeraMemory, Cerabyte says that a laser beam or particle beam structures data matrices similar to QR codes. Data reading can be done with equipment using high-resolution microscopic imaging techniques or electron beam microscopy. Initially, there will be no need for particle beams/electron microscopy, as those technologies will only be required later in the roadmaps at the highest densities. In its abstract from the 'Ceramic Nano Memory -- Data Storage for the Yottabyte Era' presentation, Cerabyte says its technology can read and write data at GB/s class speeds. These read/write technologies are "low power," according to the storage startup. Another seemingly excellent inherent property of ceramic storage is the touted media durability and longevity. On its website, Cerabyte says that its media can last "5,000+ years" and that the data stored can ensure through "a wide temperature range of -273C (-460F) to 300C (570F)." We have used quotes here, as those are extraordinary figures. Additionally, it is boasted that CeraMemory is resistant to corrosive, acidic, radioactive environments and EMP disruption.

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Cerabyte Ceramic Storage Poised To Usher In 'Yottabyte Era'

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  • or will the diamond age come first?
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Narcocide ( 102829 )

      I want to believe this isn't vaporware but IBM has claimed they were doing something similar in a lab years ago and nothing ever came of it.

  • Something is wrong (Score:5, Informative)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Friday September 08, 2023 @06:37PM (#63833786)

    Usually, when a company announces a tech and the release is 2 years away .. they are lying.

    • Usually, when a company announces a tech and the release is 2 years away .. they are lying.

      If the tech works, keep your mouth shut until you've got something ready to ship.

      If the tech doesn't work, promote it to attract investors. This strategy worked for Elizabeth Holmes, at least for a while.

      • That's pretty damn naive. Few people have the resources to bring a new product to full fruition on their own. This is why you see announcements like these. They are at the point where they need to attract investment money to move forward. "Keeping their mouths shut" does nothing but kill their product development. You can't take one example of a bad actor to declare the entire process bankrupt.

  • Write Once (Score:4, Informative)

    by DDumitru ( 692803 ) <doug@nosPaM.easyco.com> on Friday September 08, 2023 @06:38PM (#63833790) Homepage
    Based on the abstract, this is a "write once" media. This does not reduce it's usefullness for archival storage. I wish them luck getting it to scale. Strange things happen when you start counting atoms.
  • by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Friday September 08, 2023 @06:42PM (#63833794)
    “Cera” and not a single piece of concrete info in that abstract.

    I’ve got a “roadmap” too. It involves me transcending this physical plane and becoming a being beyond human comprehension. Right about, wait for it, now. No, wait, now. Ok, now. Goddammit.

    Roadmaps are as trustworthy as the company that wrote it. An Intel or TSMC roadmap? You can kinda, sorta, trust it. Some random startup? Yeah, it’s worth about as much as a guarantee on your crypto investment.
  • Or is this all just talk about a concept and future possibilities? As long as no independent parties could witness a demonstration, I'm filing this under "probably yet another startup looking for gullible investors".
  • Now, where have I heard this before? Right, the "holographic storage" that came with much the same promises but never amounted to anything. I am sure this time will be different, right?

  • How many Bytes in a cerabyte?

    • One crackpot's worth.

      A crackpot is the fundamental unit of storage for all of these vaguely described transformational-nanopower-gigabandwidth-eternal Just Around the Corner storage technologies.

      This flavor of vaporware has a history going back a long way. Here is an early 2000 example: MEMS-based storage [cmu.edu], and here's one from the mid 1970s [wikipedia.org]. There is no end in sight for this type of storage breakthrough as far as anyone can tell.

  • Everything old is new again

  • ...don't drop it.

  • Not only that, but CeraMemory also cured my uncle's Alzheimer's, my dog's hemorrhoids, Senator McFloog's alcohol problem, and fixed my erectile dysfunction problem.
  • If it's using lasers to write to ceramics, how long will the data last? If it lasts for centuries, then there is only the second problem to worry about and that is if there will be equipment or even the knowledge to retrieve the data.

Truly simple systems... require infinite testing. -- Norman Augustine

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