The modern world is governed by data. The analysis of information can shift the efforts of millions of people in a moment, whether it comes in the form of a scientist being inspired by the sound waves in his favorite song or an executive avoiding a clear disaster by seeing the signs in the daily market reports over time. Now, it will be easier than ever to store as much data as we can gather, for all of eternity, thanks to 5-D storage.

How Does It Work?

Like everything in computing, the advances of the 5-D storage technology came from moving to smaller and more efficient methods of handling data. In this case, the pathways of knowledge are illuminated by the solitary unit of light, the photon, working in great numbers across c

The main ingredient in the storage disk is silica glass, or fused glass. This material is made of pure silica in a structure that allows waves of energy – including light – to pass through it with minimal alteration. Next, the engineers make use of a femtosecond laser, the same type as in the popular LASIK corrective eye surgery operation.

The pinpoint accuracy of the laser allows the technicians to shave off minuscule dots in the glass and thus alter the way a beam of light would pass through the glass. When placed between light emitting devices and sensors, the endpoint of a photon from a particular emission source indicates a surprising amount of information.

This is where we begin to delve into why the technology is referred to as 5-D. In addition to altering the pathway of the light, the structures can change its orientation along the slow axis and the strength of retardance. Effectively, this produces changes in optical elements like color and brightness that can be detected by the sensors, allowing more pieces of information to be held in every photon transmission. In a slender sliver of silica smaller than a silver dollar, the disk can store more than 360 Terabytes of data.

What Are the Applications of 5-D Storage?

Because the drive is made from a highly stable structure with a low thermal conductivity, the creation of 5-D storage has been heralded as the ability to preserve information for eternity. Of course, the claims of lasting for eternity are an exaggeration, but for the sake of human understanding it is effectively true. The estimated lifespan for data on the drive is over 13 billion years, or 173 million spans of a human life into the future. Even the engineers admit that this doesn’t account for the application of force, but it still presents the most secure way of sending a message into a future that we are currently capable of creating.

Beyond that, the speed of data access and stability of the data are sure to find applications in improving the reliability of computing devices. For one example, a recording device linked to a 5-D storage disk could capture footage in a dangerous environment that has high signal interference before launching the video to safety. Like every step forward in science before it, you can expect 5-D storage to change the world in unexpected ways.

Katrina is a computer savvy tech specializing in designing and manufacturing custom server racks with Rack Solutions