Microsoft finds way to store data on everyday glass, keeping it safe for 10,000 years

Microsoft researchers have found a groundbreaking way to store long-term data.

The researchers developed a technique to store terabytes of information on ordinary glass that can last for 10,000 years.

The glass is of the same material as found in kitchen Pyrex and oven doors.

Published in the journal Nature, the research solves key barriers to commercialising glass-based arrival storage by extending the technology from expensive fused silica to common borosilicate glass, which is readily available and significantly cheaper.

Peter Kazansky, an optical physicist, said: “We are solving the digital dark age. Our current records are kept on fragile magnetic platters that are constantly decaying; this research ensures our digital heritage becomes permanent.”

The system titled Project Silica utilised femtosecond lasers. These lasers are extremely quick pulses of light that are used to encode data as microscopic deformations called voxels within a thin square of glass.

In their demonstration, the team stored 4.84 terabytes of data on a piece of glass just 2 millimetres thick and 12 square centimetres in size, which is equivalent to around 2 million printed books or 5,000 ultra-high-definition films.

In contrast to traditional magnetic tape and hard drives, which deteriorate within decades and need constant copying, the glass storage is resistant to water, heat, electromagnetic pulses, and physical scratching.

According to accelerated ageing tests, the data will remain intact for at least 10,000 years at room temperature.