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AI Overview As of mid-2025, significant developments in laser-engraved quartz and glass data storage have focused on improving storage density, enhancing read/write performance, and moving from a research concept toward practical archival applications. Major efforts from companies like Microsoft (Project Silica) and university researchers are advancing the technology for long-term, sustainable, and high-capacity storage, primarily for cloud services and major archives. Key advancements and projects Microsoft's Project Silica Performance and efficiency: Microsoft is leveraging AI and machine learning to optimize the encoding and decoding of data stored on quartz glass. An academic paper presented at SOSP 2023 detailed the development of a complete archival system, including robotic library automation for fetching and reading glass platters. Increased capacity: The storage capacity per glass platter has grown considerably. By late 2023, Microsoft demonstrated storing over 7 TB of data—more than 100 times the capacity previously shown—on a single glass plate. Real-world application: In 2024, Project Silica partnered with a venture group to establish the Global Music Vault in Svalbard, Norway. This is one of the first real-world uses of the technology, preserving musical heritage on silica-based glass plates. 5D optical storage (University of Southampton) Rewritable capability: Researchers are exploring rewritable variants of glass memory. In a February 2025 development, scientists created a doped photochromic glass that could be written to with a laser and erased with heat, advancing the technology beyond its "write-once-read-many" origins. AI-ready storage: In a CNN Academy report from May 2025, researchers highlighted the potential for 5D quartz crystals to serve as future data centers for AI, emphasizing the technology's potential for massive data archiving. Continued durability testing: Recent developments confirm the extreme stability of the 5D storage medium. In July 2025, it was reported that data remained intact after 3,100 hours of testing at100∘C100 raised to the composed with power cap C100∘𝐶. Core technology and remaining challenges How the technology works Encoding: Data is written into the quartz or glass using ultrafast femtosecond lasers, which create tiny, permanent nanostructures within the material. 5D storage: The "5D" aspect of this technology comes from encoding data across five parameters: the three spatial dimensions (x, y, and z) of the nanostructure and two optical dimensions (intensity and polarization). Decoding: The data is read back by shining polarized light through the glass and using machine learning-assisted optical microscopes to interpret the encoded structures. Key challenges Write/read speed: Current writing speeds are still too slow for mainstream use, though machine learning is being employed to improve this. For example, one academic paper noted that a completion time of 15 hours for a read request is acceptable for deep archives. Cost: The expensive femtosecond lasers currently prevent the technology from being a cost-effective alternative for general-purpose storage. However, the extremely low cost of long-term archival storage (due to no data migration) is a key selling point. Rewritability: While some breakthroughs have been made, commercial solutions are generally "write-once-read-many" (WORM). This is suitable for archives but not for applications requiring frequent updates. Future outlook The focus remains on commercializing this technology for long-term archival data storage in cloud infrastructure, not as a replacement for everyday hard drives or SSDs. The durability, sustainability, and data density make it an ideal solution for storing massive amounts of data that must be preserved for decades or even millennia. Sealed in glass - Microsoft Unlocked Fast forward to today, technology has remarkably expanded the storage capabilities of this sustainable material. A small sheet of glass can now hold several ter...Microsoft Unlocked The Crystal Future of AI Data Storage System - CNN Academy May 9, 2025 — A team of researchers in the UK are reimagining the future of data storage system with a 5D 5-inch quartz crystal. With a capability of storing up to 360 TB dat...CNN Academy Microsoft advances toward glass-based archival storage Nov 22, 2023 — This means that “minimizing the latency of mechanical movement in the library is crucial for optimal performance,” and also that a Silica library should be cust...Blocks and Files <><><><> Selection from Early Apple & Apple Clone Computer Collection eBay Photo: eBay Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Archival Collection Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Small Gauge Film Archive Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Advertising Archive Daniel D. Teoli Jr. VHS Video Archive Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Popular Culture Archive Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Audio Archive Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Social Documentary Photography

This file will have 3144 scans in it. Along with backups on drives, every 550 scans or so I make a DVD to physically back it up. I use a color marker page to distinguish the set from future scans. Seeing a color marker helps when dealing with thousands of files like this. Once scans are complete the whole collection goes on M-Disc Blu-ray and an archival Blu-ray. I just like 2 different discs to diversify things. M-Disc DVD is pretty $$ or I'd make the smaller backups on them as well. But I use AZO DVD. If kept in the dark AZO DVD is good for 15 - 30 years. If kept in the sun, AZO DVD's are dead in a few weeks. And all Blu-ray are not archival. Some are pretty crappy. Verbatim makes the best archival Blu-ray discs. Preferably the Japanese made discs. The budget brands of Blu-ray I only use for temp work. Not archival at all if the sun hits them. Just a tidbit of info for you about optical discs. If you want to start using color marker pages, here is a collection of them. Colored, White, Gray And Black Page Collection D. D. Teoli Jr. A. C. : D. D. Teoli Jr. A. C. : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive <><><><> Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Archival Collection Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Small Gauge Film Archive Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Advertising Archive Daniel D. Teoli Jr. VHS Video Archive Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Popular Culture Archive Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Audio Archive Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Social Documentary Photography

Along with HDD, I've been using Samsung SDD for years. And the rock solid, last ditch, backup effort is an optical disc library composed of M-Disc and archival Blu-ray. The dozen or so SDD's I have used are Samsung .5TB, 1TB and 2TB. Never a problem with any of them. Thought I'd try some 4TB Samsung SDD's. The 4TB Samsung portable T7 broke in the middle of the first transfer of 600GB. Computer won't recognize now, won't light up...nothing. There seems to be lots of issues with Samsung SDD. I also tried 2 internal 4TB Samsung 870 EVO with enclosures for external use. Problems there as well, but still can't say 100% as I'm trying new enclosures. But no doubt with the 4TB portable T7 that is dead. Samsung used to be top shelf, no worries. What the hell happened to them? are samsung 4TB ssd drives having problems - Google Search <><><><> VHS / Laserdisc Archive 1986 DDTJRAC Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Archival Collection Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Small Gauge Film Archive Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Advertising Archive Daniel D. Teoli Jr. VHS Video Archive Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Popular Culture Archive Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Audio Archive Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Social Documentary Photography

When it comes to archiving, a major obstacle to overcome is personal prejudice and small mindedness on the curator's part. I see it all the time with special collection libraries and museums I deal with. Many times the digital material I've tried to place as a donation with special collection libraries has been refused because I have it or a portion of it online. And what happens down the road? The prejudiced people that run some of these online sites remove it. Now where is it? But besides that, there is no comparison with having material at your fingertips, on disc or or the server when it comes to searching through it as compared to trying to search through it online or trying to download it with slow and spotty internet service that some of us have. In addition, these small minded archives would have the hi-resolution digital material in their collection and not the lower resolution material that is online. And they could provide a backup to the online material as well. But they just don't get it. And since I brought up resolution, keep that in mind with your archival work. I see a lot of things archived that are terrible resolution. Sometimes we have no choice and low resolution is all that we can get. But if you have a choice, archive in decent resolution online. Use resolution that could make a decent facsimile, if one day all that is left for the historical record is your last extant copy. Giant Alsace bow - selection from the Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Fashion & Hair Archives. Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Archival Collection Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Small Gauge Film Archive Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Advertising Archive Daniel D. Teoli Jr. VHS Video Archive Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Audio Archive Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Social Documentary Photography

Hi guys! As my career progresses I've found myself without an adequate solution for storing my footage and old projects. I try to cut a new reel every year or so, and right now to get to work I need to have as many as 8 separate HDDs plugged in. These are mostly personal drives or backup drives from the projects themselves. I'd love to build myself one giant tower of hard drives that I could have everything on and which would be RAID-0 for safety, but I've never built such a thing before. I've got around 10TB of footage to store right now, but would like to be future proofed, so some kind of enclosure in which I can slide drives in/out depending on my needs would be great. Do any of you have good recommendations for external enclosures, brands to prefer/avoid, that sort of thing? Thanks for any feedback you can provide!