#projectsilica — Public Fediverse posts

Now you don’t have to worry about your digital files being lost on an old hard drive. Microsoft Research has taken Project Silica out of the lab and turned it into a real system that uses regular glass. They use special lasers to write data into borosilicate glass, creating a storage medium that can last for 10,000 years. This is more than just an experiment; they’ve already stored 4.8 terabytes on a piece of glass about the size of a drink coaster.

What’s most impressive is how tough this storage is. You could put these glass slabs in boiling water or even a microwave, and the data would still be safe. Because glass doesn’t need power to keep the data intact, it’s possible to create huge archives that don’t use any electricity for cooling or upkeep. This could mean the end of the Digital Dark Age.

🧠 One glass slab holds 4.8 terabytes of permanent data.
⚡ Lasers etch 301 layers of data into 2mm of glass.
🎓 Borosilicate glass reduces the cost of archival storage.
🔍 Accelerated aging tests prove the data lasts 10 millennia.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/02/microsofts-new-10000-year-data-storage-medium-glass/
#DataStorage #Microsoft #FutureTech #ProjectSilica #Storage #Backup #Archive #DR #BC

The Register: Microsoft’s Project Silica promises eternal storage. It can’t get there from here. “Microsoft says that deployed at cloud scale, commercialized optical storage in glass is the only plausible, scalable solution for ultra-reliable, long-term data storage. That’s almost certainly right, and it will almost certainly never happen.”

https://winbuzzer.com/2026/03/02/microsoft-project-silica-glass-storage-10000-years-xcxwbn/

Project Silica's Glass Chip Stores 4.84TB for 10,000 Years

#Microsoft #MicrosoftResearch #Storage #ProjectSilica #GlassStorage #BigTech #MaterialsScience #DataManagement

:blobeyes: "#ProjectSilica is a working demonstration of a system that can read and write data into small slabs of glass. Main draw of the technology is that it takes no energy to preserve data and the data can be retrieved rapidly if needed. The #glass offers extreme stability, with experiments suggesting the #data would be stable for over 10,000 years at room temperature."

https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/02/microsofts-new-10000-year-data-storage-medium-glass

Microsoft reports excellent progress on attempts to encode data in glass using femtosecond lasers.

Project Silica is developing technology that could preserve information for 10,000 years. The system creates groups of symbols, which are then encoded as tiny deformations, or voxels into glass with a laser.

By splitting the laser into four independent beams writing at the same time, the team say the technology can record 65.9m bits per second. Microsoft claims they could store 4.84TB of data in a 12 sq cm piece of fused silica glass, 2mm deep – about the same amount of information that is held in 2m printed books.

“All steps, including writing, reading and decoding, are fully automated, supporting robust, low-effort operation”. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/18/scientists-new-way-preserve-data-microsoft #Microsoft #DataStorage #ProjectSilica #Storage #Data #ITData #InformatinTechnology #Lasers

4.8Tb in in a piece of borosilicate glass measuring 0.08 by 4.72 inches (2 by 120 millimeters) at a writing rate of 3.13 megabytes per second (MB/s) using birefringent (i.e., polarization) voxels

Microsoft Unveils Glass Storage System Lasting 10,000 Years.

#ProjectSilica

- https://www.livescience.com/technology/computing/microsoft-can-now-store-data-for-10-000-years-on-everyday-glass-thanks-to-laser-breakthrough
- https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/project-silicas-advances-in-glass-storage-technology/
- https://youtu.be/7EG1SnQGR_8?si=7JmyYrFB2407JDDE (if you prefer a podcast - first 8 minutes)

Project Silica: Microsofts gläserner Archivspeicher startet doch nicht bald (Update 2) https://www.computerbase.de/news/storage/project-silica-microsofts-glaeserner-archivspeicher-bald-in-pilotprojekten.95593/#update-2026-01-05T23:30 #Microsoft #Projectsilica

Project Silica: Microsofts gläserner Archivspeicher bald in Pilotprojekten (Update) https://www.computerbase.de/news/storage/project-silica-microsofts-glaeserner-archivspeicher-bald-in-pilotprojekten.95593/#update-2025-12-29T21:14 #Microsoft #Projectsilica

Project Silica: Microsofts gläserner Archivspeicher bald in Pilotprojekten https://www.computerbase.de/news/storage/project-silica-microsofts-glaeserner-archivspeicher-bald-in-pilotprojekten.95593/ #Microsoft #Projectsilica

I'm as leery of Microsoft as the next guy but storing data in glass is too wild of a concept to resist being fascinated by https://unlocked.microsoft.com/sealed-in-glass

#ProjectSilica #glass #tech #Microsoft

Long-term data archiving on glass...

"Storing data for thousands of years | Microsoft Project Silica"
https://youtu.be/-rfEYd4NGQg

#Data #Archiving #Longterm #Microsoft #Cloud #Tech #Storage #ProjectSilica #Cloud

#Microsoft has provided an update on its #ProjectSilica storage research.
The 7TB 'Project Silica' Glass Media as a Cloud #Storage Solution
The 7TB #glass storage media is now faster to write and "could last 10,000 years."
Write: short #laser pulses record data inside the glass as voxels (3D pixels)
Read: a computer controlled #microscope reads data
And you keep them all in a #TapeMonkey
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/microsoft-repositions-7tb-project-silica-glass-media-as-a-cloud-storage-solution

I'm VERY hype for the prospect of isolinear chips becoming real

#startrek #projectsilica #microsoft

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/microsoft-repositions-7tb-project-silica-glass-media-as-a-cloud-storage-solution

Store 7TB on a piece of glass, Microsoft will help you - In an era of ever-expanding digital data, tech giants like Microsoft face immense ... - https://readwrite.com/store-7tb-on-a-piece-of-glass-microsoft-will-help-you/ #projectsilicaglass #projectsilica #readwrite #microsoft #tech #ai

Nuovi passi avanti per Silica, il progetto di Microsoft che promette di cambiare il modo in cui archiviamo le informazioni. Lastre di vetro speciale "incise" da laser ad alta precisione potrebbero conservare dati per 10.000 anni.

#ProjectSilica #Microsoft #Innovazione

https://www.futuroprossimo.it/2023/10/project-silica-microsoft-vuole-conservare-i-dati-nel-vetro-per-10-000-anni/

The Global Music Vault wants to preserve the world’s music in case of disaster – but how will they do it? | The Independent
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/global-music-vault-svalbard-b2309390.html
#WillPritchard
#GlobalMusicVault
#DoomsdayClock
#Svalbard
#LukeJenkinson
#ProjectSilica
#InternationalMusicCouncil
#AlfonsKarabuda
#LaurentFintoni

Microsoft’s Project Silica offers robust thousand-year storage - Enlarge / Microsoft Research stored a 75.6GB digital copy of the 1978 movie "Superman" in this smal... more: https://arstechnica.com/?p=1597939 #microsoftresearch #projectsilica #antrowstron #tech