Scientists Scrambling to Prevent Global Data Storage Crisis
fliptop writes:
Servers around the world could soon face a massive data storage crunch, thanks to the "mind-blowing amount" of information people store digitally every day:
Researchers from Aston University say the global datasphere - the total amount of data worldwide - will increase by 300 percent within the next three years. Currently, all of this data sits in banks of servers stored in huge warehouses (data centers).
Unfortunately, the answer to creating more space in "the cloud" is not just to build more server warehouses. The Aston team says data centers already use up 1.5 percent of the world's electricity every year. That makes endlessly building new facilities just for massive servers an unsustainable practice.
With that in mind, scientists are now working on creating new data storage surfaces which are just five nanometers in width. That's about 10,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair! At the same time, they'll be able to increase data storage capacity on digital devices - since there will likely be no stopping the amount of information people store digitally every second of every day.
[...] "Increasing the efficiency of existing technologies will significantly reduce the need for costly, environmentally damaging construction of new 'mega data centers.' The next three years will be crucial. The global datasphere is predicted to increase to 175 zettabytes, with one zettabyte being approximately equal to one billion terabytes," [researcher in materials chemistry Dr. Amit Kumar] Sarkar, concludes.
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