Up to 256 MB FERRIT modular F-RAM storage device preserves critical data for up to 200 years
Posted by sr_local@reddit | hardware | View on Reddit | 34 comments
Irregular_Person@reddit
I keep looking for an excuse to use fram chips in a project. I love the concept
randylush@reddit
I want to save photos of my family for millions of years, and maybe send that data to the deepest coldest stretch of space for eternity. When the sun goes supernova and our planet’s information is removed, I am not completely convinced that the arrow of time would actually preserve our history; I’m not sure that it will always be true that we were here. If that makes sense.
AdmiralKurita@reddit
That's not going to happen. It'll be a planetary nebula.
randylush@reddit
Oh ok, so earth will be around forever then? I thought it would be swallowed up by the sun becoming a red dwarf. But my information isn’t up to date.
AdmiralKurita@reddit
The Sun will expand into a red giant as it exits the main sequence, and the Earth will likely be swallowed up by the Sun once the Sun becomes a red giant.
The Sun will not become a red dwarf. The Sun does not have enough mass to go type II supernova.
There's a possibility that the Earth could be around forever.
_teslaTrooper@reddit
MSP430FR series is probably a bit more accessible than these.
Irregular_Person@reddit
I was thinking more along the lines of FM25L16B-GTR, but i haven't found an application that actually warrants it yet. The best thing I can think of is for some kind of error log or device stats (plus maybe device config as well)
260X@reddit
Whatever happened to intel's glass storage that looked like a blatant rip-off of Kryptonian crystals?
reddit_equals_censor@reddit
are you sure you aren't getting things wrong?
intel is pushing for a glass substrate for semi conductors, which has nothing to do with storage.
microsoft with project silica has been pushing and already created glass longterm storage systems.
it is already used for some very very rare cases and is great for very longtime archival storage.
so maybe with a bunch further improvements it could start to replace magnetic tape in eventually more than ultra longterm storage.
(magnetic tape degrades and doesn't last for effectively forever)
for those curious why glass storage is so cool among many other reasons, the data is saved inside of the glass and not edged on the outside.
this means, that theoretically the data is safe even if the outside gets screwed a little.
so the data is literally frozen in glass so to speak to be completely safe from the outside forever possibly?
project silica inside of glass storage is the first high density storage medium, as far as we know, that will be able to survive cataclysms and civilizations shitting themselves completely, etc...
this is the actual shit, that you can make knowledge and art and history archives for to be found in 10 000 years with instructions of how to access it written on stone and explained in a way, that can be deciphered without previous knowledge of a language.
so this does actually enable cool scifi stories, that we watched and read and played.
hollow_bridge@reddit
Or realistically 50-100 years.
The idea that these exotic medias will last forever is full of holes. They are completely dependent on people being able to read the data, the devices that can read the data aren't made out of exotic materials and have regular lifetimes; So you're looking at how long the readers will be in production, how long they will survive, how long the I/O they have will be compatible with other systems.
It might not be as cool as a crystal, but the realistic long term form of storage is distributed cloud storage, which can be based on any media type.
reddit_equals_censor@reddit
is this a joke? surely you're not serious.
the cloud is just someone else's computers. yes distributed cloud storage like in the basic form of torrents for example is way more resistant, but it is based on people's computer or companies computers. a server from google is run by a purely evil corporation in bed with government and the data still existing on it at all is google and governments wanting it to still be around. so if you meant cloud storage in the current dystopian with added distributed resistance, then absolutely NO.
READ WHAT I WROTE!
of course the electronics with extreme precision and power sources, etc... etc.. will not be around.
but figuring out a microscope in the future is possible to get to that knowledge in the 3d glass then.
the written on stone instructions would have some basic guides with as much as they can put on stones to recreated the specific tech needed to access the knowledge and understand the file systems, etc...
you put the best possible manual on stone.
and you would also possibly require a future civilization to be able to dig into the ground to prevent disturbance of the archive by accident. (drilling is easy, what isn't easy is how to make semi conductors at very high density and all the hardware, that is required to make them for example)
hollow_bridge@reddit
That's just wrong... you can absolutely make a personal cloud, I have one, it's easy... Actually most large businesses have them them.
Ok so you understand that it is more resistant.
We're literally talking about computer media, yes it is based on computers....
Uh, ok...
"READ WHAT I WROTE!
"
So you're saying the current system is so dystopian that you need to to write how to build every hardware component from scratch, an operating system, and a complex laser module reading system, and de-compression algorithms into a stone block that can easily be chipped in a language that people will interpret correctly in a vauge span of years (realistically a few hundred).
You might as well just write everything in stone at that point, then getting the data isn't dependent on building the hardware/software necessary to read the data.
I can see you don't have experience with microscopes, this would be next to impossible, unless the "3d" was at most a handful of layers (which it's not). You also still need to decompress the data, and interpret the data.
It sounds like your idea is not to preserve the data for usability, but to preserve it for archaeologists. That's a thing, for sure, that could have some value. What I'm talking about though is preserving data for usability, which is a far different situation.
reddit_equals_censor@reddit
ever tried to write 10 PB of data for example onto stone?
no... well sounds like we got a density problem here.
which leaves you with what other options? oh that's right for now absolutely 0.
3d glass storage is the first way to have high density passive storage, that could survive a cataclysm and could be an option for an archive of humanity's knowledge to potentially kick start things afterwards.
doing as good as possible with options i mentioned would be certainly better than losing all advanced knowledge during a cataclysm.
but hey you don't seem to like that, so screw trying to preserve knowledge for 10000s of years right?
hollow_bridge@reddit
So you understand why your plan doesn't work...
Distributed cloud system... Almost Like I already mentioned it....
It's not the first, there's been many other options, this isn't a new idea.
It's not high density, it's significantly lower density than every other modern technology.
It can't survive a cataclysm, it's just glass, it's not invincible...
It can't be an archive to kick start humanity after a cataclysm, for the reasons we already talked about...
It would probably be the exact same, since you planned to keep it from the government and corporations, I assume you plan to keep it's location secret, so nobody will even know where it is, and it won't work...
This won't preserve knowledge for 10000s of years anyhow. I'm merely suggesting solutions that can. The ideal solution of course is to not have a cataclysm.
But if you do have one, you must have the data decentralized.
Lets imagine why, your glass cube gets bombed, oh no, it was the only one, now it's gone forever.
Now since we already require it to be decentralized, why not make it networkable? Seriously, what argument do you have against making the data store easy to access?
And if it is networkable, there is zero need for specialized media, you can use anything.
reddit_equals_censor@reddit
that will work perfectly when the electricity world wide fails and stays out for years, because of a cataclysm right? right???
that's how things work in the magical cloud. surely it doesn't need any electricity and will be fine for 1000 years after electricity went bye bye for example right?
you hallucinating things now great...
so are you trying to ragebait at this point?
put glass storage media in shock resistant storage pods.
store pods in 100s of meter deep granite seismically stable formation.
put guide on how to get to it in stone for those, who will be able to decipher it.
and there we go.
this is also not even talking hypothetically, because such designs already exist, just not for longterm storage of knowledge, but rather longterm storage of nuclear waste, which needs to be safe from access for 10000s of years.
and they do exactly that and they think exactly about what might be put on top of it, or NOT (because they may deliberately want to hide it)
because if the goal is a cataclysm safe archive, you won't have people and everyone else in the bottom of a mine combined with tons of electronics, which includes robots, the microscope readers, etc... etc..
nor is it needed, because the goal here would be safe archives for the worst case scenarios.
we can already have storage on the top of the planet be it with glass or other media.
also you should know, that glass storage would have access times of idk hours? (may get a lot better with faster reading, but still a robot is running to grab it)
it makes 0 sense, except for very longterm storage with very low amounts of access as of now.
you want the storage, the world's archive at fast access times and high bandwidth? well guess what that means spinning rust for now. actually it is memory > nand > spinning rust > at this point of the storage hirarchy we could replace magnetic tape with glass potentially in the future not rightnow.
hollow_bridge@reddit
yes, it will work at least as well as your system and possibly better. All of these systems require electricity and as I know you are aware solar electricity and other off the grid power systems, it's very obvious that you are just arguing dishonestly here and you know it.
What type of cataclysm are you foreseeing where electricity doesn't exist for 1000 years but a fragile glass disc is safe? Totally ridiculous again.
How??? how is pointing out that glass is fragile inspiring rage in you?
Again, what cataclysm are you expecting where electricity doesn't exist for 1000 years, but yet is seismically stable for 1000 years (which we have no way of knowing). earthquake prediction is very much still an immature science. I'd also like to point out that every single vault like you're suggesting has had serious long term storage issues. So what you're actually gonna get is a flooded crushed vault 100 meters deep made of reinforced materials that can't be removed without modern tech and some broken glass.
You're literally making up stuff. Onkalo Repository is not even open yet, it's the first of it's type and is completely unproven. Could it work, hopefully. But it's purpose is also very different. For example, In the case of earthquakes (which are considered a threat despite it's earthquake limited location) Onkalo is designed that it's contents remain inaccessible, totally the opposite of what you want.
Really I have no idea what type of cataclysm you are imagining. You thinking something that blocks out the sun, prevents wind, destroys everything burnable and kills all humans? If so, then sure, the glass is a good option, and that is a worst case scenario, I'm not sure what the point of it is other than for future alien archaeologists though.
I agree with this, but the last step is tape.
Practically, in my mind, no cataclysm will be complete, humans will be alive in fairly large quantities probably in rural locations. Solar/wind/fuel electricity will exist as they are relatively simple technologies that can be passed on even if civilization continually regresses. It's unlikely technology will ever fall below the 1920's for any reason I can think of. The only exception would be some kind of heavy solar flare situation that fried all digital electronics while also frying human minds to the point of monkeys.
blaktronium@reddit
The best way to preseve data is with process, not fancy storage mechanisms.
reddit_equals_censor@reddit
if by process you mean 3-2-1 backup rules or the likes,
then NO.
if we as humanity want any data to outlast us beyond things literally written in stone, then project silica like in glass storage is the only way.
your harddrives are very VERY complex moving part electronics, that during failure may turn the data into dust as well.
even if nothing else fails, the magnetism of the platters would degrade to shits after a few decades, if you're lucky.
magnetic tape also is reliant on magnetism that degrade over time sadly.
and if we look at the storage insults, that people get pushed on them today like seagate 2.5 inch external harddrives, then those might have a 10% afr. seagate refuses to publish any data on those insults.
10% afr means, that 10% of drives would fail each year.
seagate dares to sell drives with 5% afr to datacenters, so 10% afr to the 2.5 inch insults would be again nothing surprising.
if you have the basic basic consumer storage setup with 1000s and 1000s of us dollars/euros spend on it, you'd have a 2 drive failures accepting zfs storage server with high capacity drives. EXTREMELY EXTREMELY complex hardware with mountains of failure points. reliant on servicing as hardware fails.
and you got an extremely expensive tape drive to make tape backups and you store those tape backups in 2 different places then from the zfs storage server/nas.
NONE OF THIS will survive any major series events.
and this is for you a single person/family.
if we look at civilization levels of backups, then no current method, except 3d glass storage and literally carving things in stone will be able to survive 1000s of years.
any longterm storage, that would be a backup, that humanity can recover knowledge from would need to be 0 maintenance. and as said harddrives and magnetic tape are MASSIVE amounts of maintenance with constant replacement of failed parts/periodic rewriting of all data to new drives/tapes.
the ONLY way, that we know of rightnow to store data for effectively ever is to store it inside of glass.
and as this has 0 maintenance we can create a storage vault and seal it inside of a stable archeological formation underground and put down stone carved instructions inside of it and outside of it.
nothing else can do this as of rightnow.
and in regards to what i guess you mean by "process", you wouldn't have one stable underground backup passive glass storage facility, but several like 10 let's say.
so if an asteroid hits and destroys most of a continent, but humanity survives, archives elsewhere could survive.
so
are absolutely essential.
i suggest, that you think of proper time scales here and truly understand how shit harddrives and even magnetic tape is.
blaktronium@reddit
Yeah a process to move it from time to time
randylush@reddit
I don’t think you realize the time scale that we’re talking about here. Any process can easily fall apart in one generation. How do you convince starving great great grandchildren to follow your data preservation processes?
Afwiffohasnomem@reddit
time to bring democracy to krypton!
mdnkork@reddit
I think microsoft has project silica but that is still a prototype
HarmoniousJ@reddit
Don't quote me but I heard it has problems with future upgrades (it can't upgrade without a discovery of new materials) and pricing?
sr_local@reddit (OP)
It’s still almost a prototype the intel glass storage system
Valmar33@reddit
So, uh, have they stress tested it for 200 years to verify such claims?
lol
celloh234@reddit
"have they observed a monkey for millions of years to see if they evolve?" ahh comment
Valmar33@reddit
Are you serious?
They made the claim that it can "preserve critical data for up to 200 years", when it hasn't even been tested.
kuddlesworth9419@reddit
I think the biggest problems with these long terms storage devices is the ability to actually read off them long term as well. No point having a storage device last 200 years if you can't read off it because all the devices that can are all dead.
_hlvnhlv@reddit
I imagine that you'll be able to use an arduino or something like that, to probe the thing and get the data
something like an EEPROM reader
Wait_for_BM@reddit
200 years is a long time to expect that an arduino or that readers for obscured media would still exists. It is like you found some core memory from old surplus and try to read it. Surely you can pick up a memory reader at any nearby computer store, right?
What if they have all gone to optical interface or some ultra low voltage interfaces that won't talk to the device. Sometimes the effort might not be worth for what's on the media.
slinky3k@reddit
The protocol to talk to these chips is trivial.
Core memory loses its contents when not powered.
A better analogy would be an old ROM chip. And yes, you could still perfectly read that.
They will still need to interface with things that use electricity to effect changes in the physical world.
They won't have forgotten how to build a level shifter.
celloh234@reddit
yeah its not like future humans will forget basics of microchips. if worse comes to worst they can probe the chip itself like those microchip programmers
IAmYourFath@reddit
The biggest problem is u wont fucking live to 200 yrs.
_teslaTrooper@reddit
The interfaces are usually pretty standard, this one is a USB device but the chips themselves use QSPI, any microcontroller can read that.