Petabyte disks coming in 5 years?

Mmmm, 1.2 petabytes (1,024 terabytes) of storage on a single tiny disk. Just imagine the bragging rights if you sported that kind of er, package in your pocket. Well, that's what inventor Philip Michael Thomas claims to be packing via his non-contact optical spintronics approach to data storage. See Thomas has succeeded in coaxing electrons to spin in the same direction as opposed to current data storage methods which are hapless in the face of electron flip. Controlling the spin allows for smaller, higher capacity devices with prototypes expected in two to three years and commercial products in five. Perpendicular schmerpendicular, bring us spintronics!

[spezi @ Feb 20th 2006 8:44AM]

Sure.

"Thomas is a 30-year pioneer whose projects include a computer with a 3D display, instant response, able to run every available OS and application simultaneously, virtually no power consumption or moving parts and complete security - and whose physical component is about the size of a pack of playing cards."

(http://www.p2pnet.net/story/7929)

So what will be there first? :)

[Cosmos @ Feb 20th 2006 8:57AM]

Wow, 1,024 terabytes. Isn't that almost as much as the human brain can remember?

With that much space, we won't have to worry about the disks being rewritable, that's for sure!

[Voy @ Feb 20th 2006 9:05AM]

Uhm, 1,024tb would be ONE PB wouldn't it?

[Me @ Feb 20th 2006 9:14AM]

I call bullshit. While in theory this would work there's no way in hell we can manufacture such devices. And this guy keeps yelling every few years about quantum computing or quantum this quantum that. Let me see a real product first

[BlueLightBandit @ Feb 20th 2006 9:20AM]

Rewritable?!?

That's what they said about the CD's too, isn't it?

The more space programmers have, the crappier their code becomes. More room for errors, mistakes, easter eggs, virii, codecs, malware, driver conflicts, and generally bad stuff all around.

I remember playing the good ol Kings Quest on a god-awful 12 or 16 floppies. There was no room for crap back then. Now days each vendor has their own hardware configuration tools, browser, and ip sniffer packagage in with everything else.

[BlueLightBandit @ Feb 20th 2006 9:20AM]

Rewritable?!?

That's what they said about the CD's too, isn't it?

The more space programmers have, the crappier their code becomes. More room for errors, mistakes, easter eggs, virii, codecs, malware, driver conflicts, and generally bad stuff all around.

I remember playing the good ol Kings Quest on a god-awful 12 or 16 floppies. There was no room for crap back then. Now days each vendor has their own hardware configuration tools, browser, and ip sniffer packagage in with everything else.

[Dork @ Feb 20th 2006 9:23AM]

I kinda hate to be that dork, but Im pretty sure 1024 gigabytes = 1 petabyte, not 1.2, like its 1024mb/gb

[tiuk @ Feb 20th 2006 9:29AM]

I'll happily settle for 1 TB discs.

[brent @ Feb 20th 2006 9:32AM]

i call BS also...let's see some real progress

[fischju @ Feb 20th 2006 10:56AM]

Somebody really wants investors

[Joe @ Feb 20th 2006 11:00AM]

#3, if you have to see a real product first, there would be no advanced product development.

[David @ Feb 20th 2006 11:07AM]

I agree - looks like BS. I looked at the guy's company website, and it is chock-full of all the buzz words you can think of. Virtually every invention on that website would be a revolution in and of itself, but the descriptions of how they work use a bunch of technical words in a nonsensical manner that doesn't really describe anything. I can't figure out what this guy's motive would be for making so much bunk though. Maybe just too much time on his hands?

[ChillyWilly @ Feb 20th 2006 11:20AM]

Wow. That's a lot of space. You could rip all of Jan Hammer's work to that drive. Even have some space left over to store every season of "Miami Vice"

[T.Walker @ Feb 20th 2006 12:08PM]

Come on guys.... You and I both know we'll eventually have Petabyte storage the size of our pinky nail... and in 100 years that will be small beans. It's all a matter of time. 5 years may be unrealistic to most for such a leap... but the speed at which technology seems to be changing makes it not an impossible statement... We went to the moon in 1969 with less technology than I have in my MP3 player. You put enough brains and money into a room and I bet they could pull this off in 5 years.

[skonofvulcan @ Feb 20th 2006 12:16PM]

Let's see now. It was Kilobyte then Megabyte, Gigabyte, Terabyte and now Petabyte. What comes after Petabyte? And what comes after that? What? You say we will never need that much storage or memory or whatever any time in our lifetime? Hmm.... remember the 640k memory barrier? I realy am currious though. What the designations of the next two orders of magnitude?

[Keith @ Feb 20th 2006 12:40PM]

Hey, guys, try to keep your measurements consistent.

If you're using 2^n notation, then 1 PB = 1024 TB (not 1.2 PB). If you're using marketing notation (1 KB = 1000 instead of 1024), then 1.2 PB = 1200 TB. Your formula is mixing apples and oranges.

skonofvulcan: after the Petabyte comes Exabyte, which a well-known tape backup company took for its name. And after that, there's Zettabyte (which Sun is using in the name of their new filesystem, albeit mispelled), and Yottabyte. Really. http://home.att.net/~numericana/answer/units.htm#prefix

To tell you the truth, though, I suspect storage space will start to level off soon, in the Petabyte range. Considering that all of the known digital data in the universe right now is only a handful of Petabytes, I doubt we'll ever see ZB disks.

Then again, HD porn does take up a lot more space. :-P

[Jason @ Feb 20th 2006 12:42PM]

exa, zetta, and yotta are the next 3 orders of magnitude, respectively.

[devid @ Feb 20th 2006 2:07PM]

until the mpaa and riaa deem that there is no resonable use for that much storage, and bribe senators to make the technology illegal.

[Ian Wood @ Feb 20th 2006 3:56PM]

I want the ability to digitally store every movie ever made and include them all free with a two-pack of Tic Tacs.

[Gadgetking3 @ Feb 20th 2006 4:18PM]

Why does he have all this stuff described out there??? That's easy!!! He wants investment money, research grants...... money money money!!! There are tons of companies dying for the next big thing and willing to give away money just to have a piece. He can collect and never deliver and still do pretty well. He's a good fiction writer at least :o).

[John @ Feb 20th 2006 5:57PM]

"See Thomas has succeeded in coaxing electrons to spin in the same direction [..]"

I guess Pauli should be rotating in his grave by now...:)

[Osiris @ Feb 20th 2006 6:04PM]

Well, nowdays you get digital cameras (not the cheap ones) that take 100MP shots that can be GBs large at a time. I can definitely see 1PB of storage being useful in situations such as that.

[dacmonJ @ Feb 20th 2006 6:38PM]

12 years ago I remember all of the excitement because the first ONE GIGABYTE hard disk from Western Digital had become available for only $499.

And now we see Terrabyte Raid setups, 600GB hard drives and Blu-Ray and HD-DVD rockin the 50GB barrier.

Although it's improbably we will see this in 5 years it WILL happen.

[Michael Martin @ Feb 20th 2006 9:57PM]

"To tell you the truth, though, I suspect storage space will start to level off soon, in the Petabyte range. Considering that all of the known digital data in the universe right now is only a handful of Petabytes, I doubt we'll ever see ZB disks."
Uhhh, I think you have that mixed up; It's only a handful of Exabytes. There are already pedabyte RAIDs being used, filled often.

[Raymond @ Feb 20th 2006 11:40PM]

STOPPIT! STOPPIT! STOP!!!!!

WHY? Why can't we just get one insanely large storage medium and stick with it? why do we have to keep filling up more and more space?

"hey guys, look. The quality on this one is only a little better if you look close enough. it will take up the space. lets use it!" I'm fine with DVD! I don't care about HDTV! Stop!

[Sam @ Feb 21st 2006 6:04AM]

to #23: Because "everything is changing". That was known from ancient times.

The real breakthrough in the near future is NOT in rotating disks and flying heads. It will be on totally static, solid devices with no moving parts, like today's non-volatile memories. There will not be any contacts too. You will have to feed your portable (whatever media) player with little Yottabyte capsules to be able to enjoy the current technology and culture trends.

Of course, it's difficult to imagine *now* what will be the content of such a huge storage (huge only with today's criteria) in each ..pill, because simply this type of content does not exist today.
But I am sure the near future will include:

* music clips, movies and news in true 3d capture and projection, (360 degrees viewable) in a definition beyond the human eye perception (infinite def to the eye). Even your portable will be able to micro-project this with ease.

*When you'll be watching a movie, you'll be able to change in real-time from your remote the percentage of violence, sex, adventure, fantasy etc for the movie in general, as well as the personality characteristics for each actor and see what happens! That needs more storage.

* The same as above but with the ability to inner-project it directly in your brain! In such a case there will be possible to project in ...4d, for gamers and scientists! (yes, gamers will be always more demanding).
So in the near future, the exa and yottabyte storage capabilities will be rather small!

But the storage evolution will indeed stop one day. The real-time evolution will be so advanced that will render storage devices obsolete. Too advanced to imagine it now in our ...prehistoric age!

By the way, the missing link from this article is:
http://www.clossalstorage.net

[Sam @ Feb 21st 2006 11:23AM]

error, sorry it's http://www.colossalstorage.net/

[minik @ Feb 21st 2006 12:28PM]

I think petabytes will lead to an increase in petafiles and thats not good for anybody.

[Sam @ Feb 21st 2006 2:16PM]

To 26: Only in the beginning. Then the files will be just larger! For example as the capacity will be increasing, the demand for higher quality, less compressed media will be increasing too. And software companies will not optimize software for small file size anymore!

[Liam @ Mar 6th 2006 8:27PM]

Ok you are thinking way inside the box. You are saying in 20-50 years time we will have YB and ZB no we will have way larger all of you think that we will still have the old 1's and 0's no by then we will have something else. I cannot even begin to imagine it but we will.

[Sam @ Mar 13th 2006 6:10AM]

Hey, congrats Liam!
I agree with you that in less than 50 years there will be new bitless(!) technologies and new math and science that will describe it.
But first, we'll have to push the current digital technologies up to its limits. Then we'll throw it away and move on. It doesn’t matter if it happens in 20 or 50 years. It will be done soon enough and no one will notice or be complaining in the next exciting years of tech-rise!

Of course this (r)evolution will start way sooner than the date it will hit the market and make all the zeros and ones look like ...telegraph vs high definition video conference! In other words, back to analog!! Digital age will be referred in history books as a temporary passage to the... umm... sorry, I can't tell more!

Keep your mind open!