back to article Sound waves could power the future's magnetic HDDs

Our need to store data is growing at an astonishing rate. An estimated 2.7 zettabytes (2.721) of data are currently held worldwide, equivalent to several trillion bytes for every one of the seven billion people on Earth. Accessing this data quickly and reliably is essential for us to do useful things with it – the problem is, …

  1. Your alien overlord - fear me

    Vinyl comeback?

    1. Little Mouse

      Not vinyl - but i think they have invented the world's tiniest electric guitar.

      1. Danny 2

        It's not the size of your guitar but what you do with it

        I'm overly amused at data being clocked at 100mph....

        90 miles an hour girl is the speed I drive

        You tell me it's alright, you don't mind a little pain

        You say you just want me to take you for a ride

        You're just like cross-talk traffic

        1. Shades

          Re: It's not the size of your guitar but what you do with it

          "You're just like crosstown traffic"

          FTFY. The clue is in the song title, unless I've missed a joke?

          1. Danny 2

            Re: It's not the size of your guitar but what you do with it

            You missed a joke, but that's completely forgivable as it was a very wee joke, you'd have needed an electron microscope to spot it.

            When transcribing data at low power or size then cross-talk noise becomes an increasing problem. I never said it was a good joke, just trying to keep it technical here. Your reply is actually a good example of cross-talk at a human level, but hell, at least you spotted the reference, thumbs up for that!

            1. Shades
              Facepalm

              Re: It's not the size of your guitar but what you do with it

              Ahh, I get it now. My bad. See icon lol

              Incidentally thats the only Jimmy Hendrix song I like (I've always slanted more towards electronica of varying genres than "real" music)

              1. Danny 2

                Re: It's not the size of your guitar but what you do with it

                Hendrix was smeared as electronica when he started. You'd have loved him at the time. My fave was 'Hey Joe', as he was always at his best riffing off other peoples lyrics.

                'All Along the Watchtower' was great too, except it was misinterpreted in the US and led to the Jehovah's Witnesses cult.

                You may also have heard of 'Purple Haze' by Prince, a song Hendrix covered years in advance, proving he'd met the 12th Doctor during his guitar and shades phase.

                1. TRT Silver badge

                  Re: It's not the size of your guitar but what you do with it

                  Guitar? Maybe the world's smallest violin.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Vinyl comeback?

      More like bubble memory.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    2.7 zettabytes

    equivalent to several trillion bytes for every one of the seven billion people on Earth

    That's either an awful lot of pussy videos (or one sort or other) or some government is trying to log my kids web browsing activity!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 2.7 zettabytes

      Its both. Your kids are browsing pussy videos and the government is logging it!

  3. frank ly

    Areal storage density?

    Using reasonable assumptions, how would the areal storage density compare with present 'mainstream' magnetic HDDs? I assume that the device could be made in the form of a small sheet containing nanowires and surrounded/wrapped in drive and sense devices to give a standard 3.5" or 2.5" form factor.

  4. Adam 1

    > 2.7 zettabytes (2.7^21)

    Shouldn't that be 2.7 * 10^21?

  5. Known Hero
    Joke

    no good near parks

    WILL YOU PUT THAT DAMN DOG WHISTLE AWAY !!!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: no good near parks

      Indeed, throw it in the bin, I'm fed up of hearing them.

      (And yes, I have been able to hear such things. No, I am not a dog.)

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Beware the dog!

    > By applying a rapidly-switching voltage they begin to vibrate, creating a special sort of sound wave known as surface acoustic waves

    Every time I press "save" the dog leaps up and bites me!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Coat

      Re: Beware the dog!

      Well that's what you get for buying a 1 terrier bite hard drive.

  7. Trollslayer

    SAW filters

    have been used in electronics for decades, nice application of SAW.

  8. stucs201
    Coat

    100mph? To deliver data sooner, it needs to move slower.

    I know that sounds counter-intuitive, but slow the data down to 88mph and we can get it before we've even requested it...

    (yes, the one with the sports almanac in the pocket).

  9. sdrinkwater99

    What comes around, goes around

    Nothing here that is new.

    One of my first computer builds (NASCOM) used the large desktop case from a calculating machine that had Acoustic Delay Line storage for the few tens of bytes of its programming store - that was in the early 1980's. Whilst working on Flight management systems we used Bubble Memory Storage - magnetic domain bubbles storing 1/0s manipulated by rotating magnetic fields, probably still in use on the Airbus A310.

    The Elliot 903 computer used magnetic core store, 1000's of micro-sized iron torroids threaded onto a matrix of wires - i still have a memory board in my loft.

    It's all just got smaller. :-)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What comes around, goes around

      "[...] Acoustic Delay Line storage for the few tens of bytes of its programming store - that was in the early 1980's."

      Early valve computers like the English Electric "Deuce" in the 1950s used mercury acoustic delay lines as fast memory.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Electric_DEUCE

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay_line_memory#Mercury_delay_lines

  10. hi_robb

    hmm

    This is music to my ears....

  11. Alan Brown Silver badge

    Ahem:

    "However, while solid-state devices are much faster, they have a much shorter lifespan than hard disks before becoming unreliable, and are much more expensive."

    Much shorter lifespan: not in my experience (hundreds of both). There's a reason consumer hard drive warranties were slashed from 5 to 3 to 1 year whilst SSDs tend to be 3-5 years and increasing.

    Much more expensive: Not for much longer. SSDs are only 2-4 times the price for consumer devices and not much above that until you get into esoteric stuff with the kinds of demands which would wear out a mechanical drive in 3 months.

    1. FelixReg

      Re: Ahem:

      Alan, are you sure about the prices. It appears HD's are about $30 a T. I don't see any 4x, $120 SSDs out there. SSDs still look to be in the 10x range many years after Register commenters said HDs were dead.

      Sigh, from a guy who would like to justify a little 2T+ SSD on his own machine to handle most of the non-media stuff.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Ahem:

      Also came here to comment about the reliability.

    3. Cameron Colley

      Re: Ahem:

      Don't SSDs have many more unused sectors though? Meaning that the drives themselves last longer, since they're over-provisioned and have no moving parts, but the actual bits themselves are less reliable than those on magnetic media. That's certainly the impression I get anyhow.

      The fact this is done so well means I'm happy to trust SSDs with my data possibly even a little more than spinning rust but I think the technology itself has a shorter lifespan.

  12. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Go

    Return of the bubble memory?

    Does this mean non volatile as well?

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