If glass can store 5TB for 10,000 years, your hard drive is officially a relic!
— Cosmos Archive (@cosmosarcive) March 3, 2026
Microsoft’s Project Silica is rewriting the rules of data storage by etching nearly 5 terabytes into a piece of glass the size of a coaster. By using femtosecond lasers to create microscopic 3D… pic.twitter.com/ddLCAfcE2Q
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6 responses to “Data Storage on Glass”
10,000 years!
And 500 years from now some kids living in caves will smash the accumulated knowledge of civilization with rocks for fun.
If we can keep from blowing ourselves up and destroying the planet, then perhaps this will help with our accumulated human knowledge. However given our propensity to eradicate our own species, don’t hold your breath on surviving the next 10,000 years.
My Tool and Die Maker Instructor when i was in trade school in the 1990s, worked at Corning (Wake County, NC) and he was working on the project that was using glass as a semiconductor (microchip) back in the 60s. He said when silicon was invented, that pulled the rug out from under Corning’s efforts in the semiconductor market. This has been around a while. I bet this could be used to counter China’s stranglehold.
Who knew??? I have been hoping for something like this, so we can preserve the knowledge we have accumulated in the event something catastrophic happens (like a massive solar flare that knocks back into the stone age). If we can preserve that information, and somehow preserve the knowledge on how to access that information in the future (on something that does not require a computer to read it), humanity will not have to start completely over, just to have it wiped out by the next solar flare.
I remember reading a sci fi story many years ago where humans discovered the relics of an alien civilization. Among those relics were fan shaped ceramic like objects. Their government had no idea what they were and they were sold as decorative objects to help fund the government. Many years later when they learned those “fans” were actually data storage they panicked trying to find them all and repurchase them….at a huge price increase. Future societies could find things like this and CDs and use them for drink coasters not knowing how to access the info on them.
Maybe when the aliens find the Epstein files or an episode of The View on the glass disk they will understand why no humans survived.