Technology @lemmy.ml schizoidman @lemmy.ml 3mo ago

This USB flash drive can only store 8KB of data, but will last you 200 years

www.tomshardware.com This USB flash drive can only store 8KB of data, but will last you 200 years

Something you do not expect from a NAND-based drive, do you?

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The year is 2245. The heirs finally locate a working, antique reader that can handle the ancient USB key, hoping to find great-great-grandpa's crypto-wallet or the pin-code to a long-lost Maltese bank account.

Instead, they find a 4-bit, VGA-quality scan of Miss October.
An actual book stores more data than that and for longer. At that point, why not just etch the data onto a metal plate or something? 8K is only a few pages of text at 12pt. It could easily fit onto two sides of a small-ish metal plate, etched in 8pt or so, and it would last, potentially, for millennia.
- I think the idea is to improve upon this tech so the capacity would become larger.
  
  It’s FRAM, which has been around for ages. The problem is its prohibitive cost— hence the 8k.
- This can be rewritten many, many, many times.
  
  What’s the practical benefit of that? If the point is long-term storage, rewriting isn’t a priority (or possibly even a need). And this isn’t designed for capacity.
- Why even invent the car when horse so much faster?
  
  You wouldn’t use a car to race in the Kentucky Derby
- idk, its much more resistant to floods.
  
  Than an etched metal plate?
So your 8KB of data will last forever, but what about the firmware required to access it running on flash?
- In 200 years, AI will hack it for you, but you’ll need a dozen antique dongles to get from USB-Z to A.
- it does say it has a built-in serial console and raspberry pi
  
  And the firmware inside that rp2040 is stored on plain old flash memory. So while the data may still be on the memory chip, the controller chip dies at just the same pace than every other usb drive - and then you can't access it.
Print out 8KB on high quality paper.

Store in good environment...
- How do I read that data back
  
  With your eyes
  
  just print something like a QR code in absurd resolution and read it in a document scanner, a single sheet of A4 should be able to fit quite a lot of data.
- How do I get a good environment?
  
  What was the name of the metal boxes you put as the cornerstone of a house again?
As the old saying goes: What could a person need more than 8KB for?
- 32KB*
I'm going to get one for my favicon.
- What's the favicon?
  
  Then I said "I don't know, what's the favicon with you?"
  
  The little icon you see next to a URL on desktops.
  
  Basically the only file that's (sometimes) less than 8kb
I would be surprised if you couldn't get 8KB for 200 years out of standard flash simply by extreme duplication --- 8GB/8KB means a million copies on one (very small by today's standards!) drive.

Or is the failure mechanism something other than bitrot?
Kinda funny, I was just writing about archival media this morning. Verbatim makes DVDs & Blue Rays that last ~100 years, and M-DISC makes ones that'll last ~1000 years. And the Verbatim Blu Rays run ~$0.036 per gig.
- I'm sure storage environment matters though?
  
  Oh yeah, stick it in the sun or a damp box and either will probably be bad in weeks instead of decades or centuries. But supposedly they'll meet those lifespans good at room temp
- I use M-Discs too
Somewhat better than this useless USB thingy (from Temu?)

https://futurism.com/memory-that-lasts-forever-new-quartz-coin-can-store-360tb-of-data-for-14-billion-years

Summary by Andisearch

Researchers have developed a new quartz coin that can store 360TB of data for 14 billion years. This is a significant improvement from the previous quartz glass storage, which could only store data for 300 million years. The technique uses femtosecond laser pulses to write data in the 3D structure of quartz at the nanoscale. This makes it possible to store the whole of human history in a small coin-sized device. The storage system is also very durable, able to withstand high temperatures. This technology could potentially serve as a means of archiving important information for future generations or even extraterrestrial beings.
Will the chip actually last that long though? I would have expected a ceramic package with gold plated leads, not a plastic SOP-8.
You mean my 2GB Kingston that I bought in 2007, that I rarely use anymore won’t last me 200 years? Damn…
Kind of hard to return this after 195 years if it fails.
- Hopefully its open source and you get all the schematics needed to repair it
  
  Just one small issue with that... I probably don't live for another 195 years. :)
The other flash chip storing program code for the rp2040 will decay before then making the longevity marketing dumb
- Why you should buy two! /s
what about physical damage. or emp or something. I feel like that will be a problem well before 200 years.
- Mold is actually the biggest concern with the most popular archival format LTO. EMPs aren't that much of a concern. Bit flips and bit rot are your main concerns traditionally when using flash for archival storage. It's recommended if you go the flash route to keep your array hot (ie powered on) and use a file system with data scrubbing capabilities such as ZFS.
  
  Is the ZFS header bigger than 8kb?
future firmware updates are expected to include encryption features

Just use GnuPG. SMH
- I don't think that would fit.
The more you read is just gets wilder and wilder.

I'm admittedly interested now.
FRAM module? Seriously?
I'm pretty sure my PGP keyring is bigger than that
If you need data stored for ~200 years, just use a fucking one shot programmable ROM.
That's nothing. Fused quartz can last you billions of years.

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