Memory for the Next Millennium

Memory for the Next Millennium

The big problem that few people ever bother to think about is how long will documents, photos, videos and so, stored as digital data, last? The short answer is no one knows. It depends how it is stored, and the bad news is that none of the storage mediums we current use are good for more than around 50 years, some a lot less, but even that’s just an educated guess because they haven’t been around long enough for anyone to find out. That’s only part of the problem, though; even if a storage device can guarantee data integrity indefinitely, can the same be said of the equipment needed to retrieve the data? Which brings us DRS Memory, a memory system that Tech-On reports was developed by researchers at Keio and Kyoto Universities, in collaboration with Sharp. DRS stands for Digital Rosetta Stone and it’s claimed that it can store large volumes of data for more than 1000 years. It’s a solid-state device, using stacked semiconductor wafers; with the data it contains recorded using direct electron beam writing technology. A stack of four 15-inch wafers can apparently store up to 2.5Tb of data, the data can be read off the stack using wireless systems. Of course at this stage it’s all conjecture and whether or not anyone will be around in 3009, with a working wireless laptop to see if they were right is another matter…