Data Storage

A team of chemists has developed a new type of magnetic molecule that could be the key to storing vast amounts of data on absolutely miniscule drives. That could be huge for data centers in the future.

The ice that makes up glaciers isn't 100% solid – it's actually full of air bubbles, some of which formed centuries ago. Inspired by this fact, scientists have developed a method of using bubbles to store coded data in ice.

Cuneiform, the world's oldest form of writing, involved making indentations in clay tablets. Scientists have now developed a data storage system that's like cuneiform on steroids – and it's capable of storing more data than a typical hard disc drive.

Scientists have stored the entire human genome on a five-dimensional crystal capable of storing up to 360 terabytes of information and is built to survive for billions of years. The tech could be used to create an enduring record of human, animal, and plant genomes.

A full DNA computer is a step closer, thanks to a new technology that could store petabytes of data in DNA for thousands or even millions of years. The system can also process data, as demonstrated by solving sudoku puzzles.

DNA is a much denser data storage medium than anything humans can design, but the problem is that it’s fragile. So now scientists have taken another page out of nature’s book and created artificial amber to protect data stored in DNA longer term.

Diamond is a promising material for data storage, and now scientists have demonstrated a new way to cram more data onto it, down to a single atom. The technique bypasses a physical limit by writing data to the same spots in different-colored light.

10,000 years in the future, explorers could end up getting rickrolled, thanks to a Global Music Vault due to be built in Norway. It features Microsoft’s Project Silica, a tough new data storage medium that’s never gonna give you up.

You may think that computer tape memories died out before Rubik's cubes came in, but IBM and Fujifilm have teamed up to develop a record-breaking new sixth-generation tape storage system that can backup a whopping 50 TB of data.

Scientists have developed a new way to tap into the incredible data storage density of DNA in a more scalable way. A “biological camera” imprints images into the DNA of living cells, tagged with barcodes to retrieve data.

Cambridge scientists have developed a new prototype for computer memory that could make for faster chips that could hold up to 100 times more data. The system is made up of barium bridges between films of a disordered material.

Future data centers might switch to a storage medium that nature has been using for billions of years – DNA. In a major step towards making that a reality, scientists have created a new system of reading and organizing files using microcapsules.