Microsoft is working on a new kind of storage technology, called Project Silica, that could store data essentially forever without any electricity. Instead of writing data to a magnetic storage medium, it encodes that data in a sheet of glass smaller than a DVD.
Microsoft engineer Ant Rowstron and his team has developed a system that writes data to sheets of glass using short laser pulses. The laser physically alters the internal structure of the glass, so even scratches on the surface won't alter the code. Since glass is a very stable material, engineers estimate the data could be stored safely for 10,000 years or more. A single plate has enough space for 1.75 million music tracks, which works out to about 7TB of total storage. Notably, the glass plates don't need any power to do their job. You just stack them on a shelf and read them when needed.
