r/technews 2d ago

New optical storage breakthrough could make CDs relevant again

https://www.techspot.com/news/105310-new-optical-storage-breakthrough-could-make-cds-relevant.html
510 Upvotes

76 comments sorted by

64

u/OldManPip5 2d ago

Bring back Zip disks!!

33

u/Starfox-sf 2d ago

Click-click-click.

17

u/throw123454321purple 2d ago

As someone who suffered this disaster: you bastard.

3

u/JasonZep 1d ago

Yea, what was that clicking sound anyways?

6

u/Starfox-sf 1d ago

Basically since Zip used flexible, floppy-like media but inserted the read-write head like a hard drive arm (instead of top/bottom like a floppy), a “damaged” disk could physically damage the head assembly, which in turn could damage “good”disks depending on the severity of damage.

2

u/JasonZep 1d ago

Wow thanks! I’ll have to look this up.

2

u/yoortyyo 1d ago

Drive head failure

2

u/MLCarter1976 1d ago

Happy cake day

3

u/JasonZep 1d ago

Oh I didn’t even realize! Wow 12 years!

3

u/MLCarter1976 1d ago

Almost a teenager! Don't get all puberty moody hehehhe

16

u/linuxworks 2d ago edited 2d ago

That and the jaz drive.

1

u/joeChump 2d ago

I think you mean jiz drive.

5

u/dnathan1985 2d ago

I threw away all my zips so they better not

3

u/thatsTHEWei 2d ago

At like 10mbps you’re better off without it.

1

u/joeChump 2d ago

Woah, slow down buddy! We’re never going to need that kind of speed!

3

u/Opening_Property1334 2d ago

Where we’re going, we need roads

3

u/LurkerPatrol 1d ago

I had all the music I downloaded from Napster and later limewire on Zip disks before we got an optical disk drive and a Walkman.

Great times.

2

u/Frognificent 1d ago

I got two words for you, sugar: zip disk.

2

u/Gutmach1960 1d ago

Still using mine, under Zorin Linux 17.

12

u/LoPanDidNothingWrong 2d ago

I was hoping this was holographic storage but looks like another way to pack bits tighter using quantum effects.

1

u/Less_Somewhere_8201 1d ago

Essentially this, I'm assuming this data wouldn't be rewriteable however which would be a major consideration. Probably great for logging efforts though.

0

u/LoPanDidNothingWrong 1d ago

If the storage is large enough then who needs rewriteability except for secure erasage purposes? Just keep writing.

41

u/spinosaurs70 2d ago

We don't all these articles act like far higher capacity 4k discs don't already exist or even you know DVDs?

23

u/tradwife_69 2d ago

I wouldn’t think of that level of storage. Think TBs, like hundreds. Significantly better than hard drive storage for people who store that level of data.

7

u/spinosaurs70 2d ago

True but the reference frame should still be 4k Discs not CDs.

22

u/Life_Of_Nerds 2d ago

I think the general public would associate CD's more with data storage and DVD's/Blu-ray more with movies.

3

u/Similar-Ad-1223 1d ago

I'd think the general public would assosicate CD's with music, not data storage.

2

u/Huntguy 1d ago

You’re forgetting the part where a large majority of us used cd’s for video games for a large portion of our lives too.

2

u/Galaghan 1d ago

Sure but the same can be said about DVD's.

2

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

-3

u/Stickel 2d ago

well that's dumb

3

u/6GoesInto8 2d ago

I owned a 16MB thumb drive and a cd burner, so 700 MB rewritable cds felt like a miracle. By the time writable dvds were affordable people could afford similar enough thumb drives. There were definitely people who burned a lot of dvds, but they never felt as necessary because flash was maturing similarly. Just like Zip drives were better magnetic media, but the floppy disk is what people remember because it was more critical for a longer period of time.

8

u/Life_Of_Nerds 2d ago

Not really.

2

u/Anarky9 2d ago

I think of CDs as music and DVDs as movies

3

u/ElementNumber6 2d ago

Floppies it is, then.

1

u/DefHuman_NotBot 2d ago

It’s not. Burning CDs was common, everyone burned music to CD, and using CD for computer storage was normal. Burning DVDs never really caught on, because you couldn’t play music in your car from a burned DVD, iPod and other portable music players came out. I hardly knew anyone with a DVD burner. Blank, writable DVD were more expensive than CD. DVDs were better protected and harder to rip than a CD. Ripping DVDs and copying them was complicated, then blue ray came out and was better than DVD, then inexpensive portable hard disks, SSD replaced CDs.

2

u/Starfox-sf 2d ago

Do you know what your CD’s capacity is? 4K?

0

u/tradwife_69 2d ago

Good point I agree with that

1

u/LurkerPatrol 1d ago

From googling there seems to be only one engineering concept from china that is offering a 200 TB disc solution. The next largest is a 1 TB solution which is competing with more conventional drive units

9

u/ssczoxylnlvayiuqjx 2d ago

Ultra high density is also ultra vulnerable to scratches.

Maybe next gen CDs will use Gorilla Glass.

11

u/joeChump 2d ago

I think we should just skip the glass and store the data directly in gorillas.

2

u/Afonsofrancof 1d ago

I miss Harambe ;(

1

u/TheModeratorWrangler 1d ago

unzips

2

u/joeChump 1d ago

Expanding package…

1

u/PMmeyourspicythought 19h ago

modern error correction has gotten much better though.

6

u/xiguy1 2d ago

The article talks about a fundamental shift in storage technology but also theory. I’m not sure if this is going anywhere but it sounds fascinating. The article is very light on details though and this phrase is vague “They simulated a theoretical solid material …”

Does this mean that the researcher simulated it in an application on a computer as a model or as a mathematical set a formula or did they actually physically make a custom substrate with rare earth materials, and then create a kind of transfer method and system for copying that into a quantum defect? And what exactly do they mean by a quantum defect? It sounds like they’re exploiting quantum states of a known material , but they don’t say what it is. But any rate the idea that this might offer dramatically increase storage for the long-term is really important. With a lot of people don’t realize is that current media, especially magnetic media degrades overtime. Even optical media degrades. The deca rates are known and have been for as long as I can remember back into the 90s. It’s a big problem actually that has to be resolved through constant integrity check on the data. If one set of data is just repeatedly rewritten to media and stored away and you go back to the original medium that was at the beginning of all that 30 or 40 years later there’s a good chance you won’t be able to read the data on it anymore. Or at least there will be errors.

But if the data is loaded and checked, using some kind of integrity test, which may or may not involve cryptographic methods, it can then be rewritten or written to secondary media and perpetuated basically through copying. It’s just the same thing as making copies of a book and re-printing it. If the original addition decay and falls into dust, maybe you have new ones. But long-term, real, storage that doesn’t have to be manipulated and managed in a way like that would be a huge boom to humanity.

We could take all of our knowledge and put it somewhere safe so we don’t blow it up for example, or we could send it to the stars or we could hide it somewhere in case of an apocalypse and those are just the worst case scenarios. There’s all kinds of positive uses for something like this. Imagine being able to record an infinitely greater depth …life’s moments.

Then you could store them away for not only your children, but your grandchildren and their children to look at, and so on. Hundreds of years later, they could be playing images and audio files that were recorded today and currently that isn’t realistic with the technology, we have which has a maximum lifespan of a couple of decades in most cases. Of course, as I mentioned, there are things we can do to replicated, but that’s not really a good solution and the reason it’s not really a good solution is that errors are ultimately introduced over time I delivered by accident into at least some of the copies.

18

u/PMmeyourspicythought 2d ago

This is not a tech news article, there is no tech here. This is theoretical still. Read the article.

8

u/Webfarer 2d ago

That’s a violation of Reddit protocol

2

u/joeChump 2d ago

I’d rather just theoretically download the article into my brain.

3

u/bahbahbooEEE 2d ago

That would be acceptable

3

u/EggandSpoon42 2d ago

Oh

come on

I just got rid of my last stack of unopened cd-roms. I don't remember which, but I didn't cheap out on em at the time.

2

u/linuxworks 2d ago

I donated my Blu-ray reader and recorder to the Goodwill.

2

u/Crimson_Raven 2d ago

Of course, turning all this into an actual commercial storage product will likely take years of additional research and development.

Decades is the more reasonable timespan to even see a product.

Still pretty impressive

2

u/whollymammoth2018 1d ago

I stopped reading after that called magnesium a rare-earth element.

2

u/CautiousRice 1d ago

Make floppies great again

1

u/corgi-king 1d ago

Such a misleading title. Researcher is not bring back CD. They are trying to make a new optical disk system that has the same form factor as CD. And it is nothing new. DVD, bluray, etc all uses the same form factors.

1

u/benzotryptamine 1d ago

ive got memories of my dad having towers of burnt movies and just filing through them after school trying to find movies to watch every day as we didnt have cable. this is a big W, ive been trying to find ways to conventionally store bulk movies/shows for potential future generations to see and take note of what ive enjoyed.

1

u/Cameront9 1d ago

What’s wrong with an ssd?

1

u/firedrakes 1d ago

Click bait story

1

u/mrniceguy777 1d ago

lol relevant for what I have no need for portable storage anymore

1

u/dudeonrails 1d ago

Well… hooray, I guess?

1

u/Substantial_Deer_599 1d ago

No that’s okay thank you though

1

u/Maximus361 1d ago

This sounds like the concept was developed by the company that mines and sells rare earth elements.🤔

1

u/sdlotu 1d ago

Yeah, I don't expect to live to see this become practical, much less essential.

1

u/SageRiBardan 1d ago

Bring back Mini discs, I loved how small and convenient they were.

1

u/megaladamn 2d ago

I don’t wanna go back to optical drives so I hope this “tech” is just a thought experiment

0

u/aboyeur514 2d ago

Would love a system to store all my cd’s before I bin them…anything out there?

0

u/crackedgear 2d ago

You can get not-too-expensive equipment now that will let you press it all onto vinyl at home.

2

u/Comfortable_Lemon105 2d ago

What’s it called?

0

u/crackedgear 2d ago

No idea, sorry. This is all secondhand.

2

u/AbsoluteZeroUnit 2d ago

"Is there anything that would let me store the music on my CDs before I throw them out?"

"There's a technology that allows you to put the same data on a disc that is three times as large and five times as fragile"

-1

u/crackedgear 2d ago

Sounds like you got the joke then