Being able to store terabytes of data on a hard drive is pretty easy as nowadays, all you need to do is hook up a hard drive to your computer and you can start storing content immediately. But being able to keep that data lasting for longer than several years can be quite a challenge, especially if you regularly use the hard drive. It looks like that will be a thing of the past as a team of researchers have built a hard drive that can reportedly store data for over one million years.
The researchers hail from the University of Twente in the Netherlands and first looked into the theory of how information ages prior to making their amazing discovery. What they found was data needs to be stored in a way where its distinct from other pieces of data. The researchers then proceeded to put their discovery to use by building a disk that would do just that, which resulted in a thin tungsten disk that has a series of fine lines, that has been coated in a protective layer of silicon nitride.
If what the researchers is actually usable by the common everyday person, we’d certainly be interested to see what they think civilizations millions of years in the future should know about us. If I had to make one suggestion, it’d be the invention of the Shake Weight.
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