Scientists invent memory storage good for a billion years

Traditional storage has a limited lifetime

Scientists are reporting successful tests of a new memory device that could allow terabytes of data to be stored without corruption for a billion years.

The device is an iron nano-particle that measures 1/50,000th of the width of a human hair, enclosed in a hollow carbon nano-tube. The iron can be shuttled back and forth within the tube as a way to store data.

The team claimed that it is possible to build storage devices capable of carrying 1TB of information per square inch, making it more effective than current techniques. The data will also be almost incorruptible, and should remain available for a billion years or more.

Current memory technologies are nowhere near as long lasting. Conventional Flash memory, for instance, usually fails after three to five years.

Alex Zettl, one of the team behind the invention, gave the example of the Doomsday Book, which was written on vellum and has so far lasted over 900 years. The digital version of the book, encoded in 1986, failed in under 20 years.

Details of the device will be published in Nano Letters later this month.