‘Revolutionary’ data storage holds every movie ever made in palm-sized device

Anthony Cuthbertson
·2 min read
Cerabyte says its data storage system can hold 10,000 terabytes of data in a palm-sized cartridge (iStock/ Getty Images)
Cerabyte says its data storage system can hold 10,000 terabytes of data in a palm-sized cartridge (iStock/ Getty Images)

A new type of data storage system could hold “all data forever” using the same material used to build toilets, according to its creators.

German startup Cerabyte unveiled what it claims to be a fully operational prototype of its next-generation CeraMemory storage system, capable of storing 10,000 terabytes (TB) of data in a palm-sized ceramic cartridge.

This capacity is roughly the equivalent of 2.5 million movies – four-times more than all the films listed on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Including other media, it would be conceivable to fit every song on Spotify and every book on Amazon onto the device.

Lasers are required to write data onto ceramic nanolayers that are just 50-100 atoms thick, while reading the data requires high-resolution microscopes.

The company notes that its ceramic deisgn ensures both low cost and extreme resilience, offering a virtually unlimited lifespan that allows it to “store all data forever”.

Data stored on the device can survive temperatures ranging from -273°C to 300°C, according to Cerabyte, while also being resistant to radioactive and acidic environments. Attempts to wipe or disrupt the data through an electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) attack would also apparently fail.

If successful, Cerabyte claims its technology will create a “storage revolution” that will disrupt the $500 billion data storage market and usher in “the Yottabyte Era” – referring to a storage volume equivalent to a quadrillion gigabytes (GB) or a million trillion megabytes (MB).

“Sustainable long-term data storage is one of the most urgent problems in our world,” the firm’s website states. “Cerabyte is the solution for reducing 99 per cent of CO2 emissions generated by conventional cloud data storage... [while] minimising electronic waste.”

One potential drawback is a relatively slow upload time compared to conventional hard drives, with current throughputs limited to just 1GB/s. This would mean filling the 10,000 TB device could take longer than a day.