Emerging Technology On Data Storage. [The Holy Grails Of Future Data Storage]

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Introduction

Data storage has been one of the crucial aspects of information processing. I mean; what would be the need of processing data or going through the processes of computation without having a structure on ground to hold the data? In this survey, we will be looking at how advances in emerging technology have charted a new course in the area of information/data storage. We shall also be looking at the future of data storage, their merits and demerits.

[Image Source: Maxpixel. CC0 Licensed]

Before I proceed; for you to understand fully the need for an efficient and viable data storage system; here's a little fact you might need to know: According to IBM, 2.5exabytes of data was created daily in the year 2012. The figure may look too big, but it might interest you to know that this is nothing compared to the information being produced now. Also, according to the same IBM, over 90% of the entire data generated in the world was generated in the last 2years.

Okay! That's not where it stops; with the advent of Internet of Things (IoT) and advanced AI (Artificial Intelligence) the data output is set to multiply. According to smart data; by the year 2020, every single person; on average; would be generating a whopping 7megabytes of data per second (Calculate that for the number of people in the world for one year); now that's amazingly high. This is the reason we need a very dynamic data storage medium.

Before now, we have seen some storage devices like: The USB drives, hard disk, optical disc, magnetic storage device, floppy disk, SD memory card, zip drives, etc. Okay, no doubt, these were some major advancements at some point. But like you know, technology keeps advancing and we are almost gone pass that era. So let's see some of what the future holds as it relates to data storage.

1. Holographic Storage

You may have heard of hologram (3-Dimensional holographic imagery or projection). At least, this term is not entirely new; except for the uninitiated. But do you know it can also be a very viable storage medium? Just look at it as the means of storing data or information in sequences of beams.

[Image of Holographic Data Storage. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Author: Surachit. CC BY-SA 3.0 Licensed]

Now, there are two sides to storage, which are; "writing" and "reading", and without passing these two qualities, a medium cannot be called a "storage medium". So how does one record or write data in a holographic storage system? Okay, let me try to break it down in a layman's term. The word "hologram" would indicate to you that "beam" is involved. Now, this uses what we call "reference beam" (which is light from single or mono laser beam that is selectively separated or broken into two or multiple optical models of dark pixels and light pixels). It is this reference beam that hosts the data.

How does one read or retrieve data from the holographic storage system? The retrieval process also uses the same reference beam that was used to write data onto it. When the reference beam is recreated, it would be made to pass through some specialized photo-sensitive materials. Then, the illumination of these materials would reveal the specific interference optical model used to create the reference beam, which is then sent to a detector to selectively filter out the required data.

You won’t be wrong to infer that this actually came as a replacement to the technology of the optical storage. But unlike the optical storage medium, the holographic storage has the ability to record and retrieve Gigabytes of data in "parallel". Also, talking about the durability; this can hold data for up to a century. This is due to the fact that this data storage model uses the "WORM" (Write-Once, Read Many) model. That is why the reference beam can hold data without much mutilation being done to the data.

2. Helium Drive

Okay some may not have heard about this, but this is one of the major contenders in data storage fields (you won't be wrong to look at this as the means of storing data in "air"). But in the actual sense, this is the process of storing data in hard drive filled with Helium gas.

[Image Source: Wikimedia Commons. Author: Hubert Berberich. Public Domain Licensed]

One of the proponents and designers of this storage device is the computer giant; Seagate; with a launch of an 8Terabyte helium-filled drive. However, propositions have been made to achieve a whopping 360Terabytes in a single helium drive; that's pretty amazing.

Now, why is helium chosen for the drive? Okay, we know from our elementary chemistry that helium is lighter (or less dense) than air. The lightness of the helium has been shown to increase both the storage speed and density of the drive (and reducing frictional force as they spin), thus making it to store more data in lesser time. Remember this: In the field of data storage, "speed" is a major factor to be considered. And awesomely, a helium drive can write data at the rate of a whopping 249MB per second.

But as it were, one of the downsides of this technology is in the area of cost. It is still at the high end, and not readily affordable by the average consumer; except for servers and few workstations. But I believe that, with further advances in this, cheaper models would be produced.

3. DNA Storage

This is one of the holy grails of data storage, and it has been drawing much attention lately. As a matter of precision, this would change the face of computing and information processing in the future.

[Image Source: Pixabay. CC0 Licensed]

We all know what DNA is. And from our knowledge of biology, we know that DNA stores biological data, but do you know that it can store other forms of information? Now you see, technology is fast merging with biology, and this is one of them. According to Professor George Church (dept. of genetics, Harvard. And co-inventor of the CRISPR);

DNA has the advantage as a medium for immutable and high latency information storage. - Prof Church. Source. [Paraphrased by me]

The earliest idea of storing of information in DNA was made around the late 1980s which was used to encode 7.9kilobits of data. But from research, it has been proven that a gram of DNA can hold up to 2.2petabytes of data. To make this figure clearer, look at this:

1petabyte = 1,000,000,000,000,000bytes

In the year 2017, a research was heralded by a team of scientists form Harvard, which led to the process of encoding digital data into DNA, which included: 11images, 1javascript code, and over 53thousand words. Also, the DNA holds an advantage of storing data for a very long time (theoretically, it can last up to 400millenia).

But currently; being an emerging technology; the DNA storage still has some downturns. Firstly, the cost is very much on the high end, and secondly, it takes much time for the read-and-write process to be completed. But hey!! With advances, these challenges would be circumvented.

There are also some other futuristic mediums of data storage that would greet us shortly, and a very strong contender is the quantum storage. Well, maybe the future would present us with more options to choose from. But until then, let us keep an open mind and welcome the emerging tech as they arrive.

Conclusion

As we may have been aware of, data storage forms a very integral part of our processes of computation, and this has been seen to be increasing geometrically lately. Without an effective data storage medium to match the output of data per day, there could be a "data overload" scenario. That is the reason some models of data storage have been considered. But like I've always said; "technology keeps advancing", and in the not-so-far future, these proposed data storage options would be considered obsolete, just like the magnetic storage devices have almost gone into oblivion.

Thanks for reading