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SPhotonix – 360TB into 5-inch glass disc with femtosecond laser

49 points by peter_d_sherman

by biglyburrito

3 subcomments

"According to SPhotonix, its current prototypes achieve write speeds of around 4 MBps and read speeds of roughly 30 MBps."
Assuming I did the math right, that means it'd take almost 3 years at max write speed to fill up the 360TB drive. So yeah, not quite ready for public consumption just yet.

by ycui1986

4 subcomments

they claim to increase the speed to 500Mbps in 3-5 years. but femtosecond laser is not semiconductor. there is no exponential scaling law.
femtosecond laser has been running at 80MHz for decades, they cannot just talk to the laser manufacture and ask them casually to increase that to 500MHz or above. so, it is better to take a grain of salt of the claim speed can be increase to 500Mbps in 5 years.
The cost of the femtosecond laser also won't come down easily either. At $75k a pop for the laser alone, who can afford such technology?

by reactordev

0 subcomment

So cool yet so slow…
Maybe someday we’ll get Star Trek style clear “chips” that store our information and can be read at Gbps speeds.
Soon. Someday soon.

by enzosaba

1 subcomments

This would be good to dump the internet onto a disk and preserve it for the eternity. Something that Elon Musk would like; he wants to send its grokipedia to space.

by mrbluecoat

1 subcomments

by typpilol

4 subcomments

Sounds cool for long term data storage, but they need to get the read write speeds up.
4mbps write and 30mbps read is extremely slow. Even if they achieve their roadmap 500mbps is still slow compared to modern drives.
Better not keep any data you need access to within like 90 days on it or you're toast.
What market is this even aiming for? Bitcoiners?