Incredible!!! IBM's New Storage Device

the_5th_ape · #1 by **the_5th_ape** » Jan 13, 2012 5:33 pm

Researchers at I.B.M. have stored and retrieved digital 1s and 0s from an array of just 12 atoms, pushing the boundaries of the magnetic storage of information to the edge of what is possible.

Until now, the most advanced magnetic storage systems have needed about one million atoms to store a digital 1 or 0. The new achievement is the product of a heated international race between elite physics laboratories to explore the properties of magnetic materials at a far smaller scale.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/scien ... tml?_r=1#h[]

matt8819 · #2 by **matt8819** » Jan 13, 2012 5:59 pm

My jaw just broke from hitting the floor.
Science!!!

SafeAsMilk · #3 by **SafeAsMilk** » Jan 13, 2012 6:01 pm

My brain:

chairman bill · #4 by **chairman bill** » Jan 13, 2012 6:05 pm

Yes, it's because God has upgraded the atom angels to version 1428.001. It's all part of His Great Plan. So, God - Win, Science - Fail, again!

HughMcB · #5 by **HughMcB** » Jan 13, 2012 6:20 pm

Crikey, this is a giant leap forward.

Onyx8 · #6 by **Onyx8** » Jan 13, 2012 7:48 pm

Five orders of magnitude? Wow!!!

SafeAsMilk · #7 by **SafeAsMilk** » Jan 13, 2012 7:51 pm

Onyx8 wrote:Five orders of magnitude? Wow!!!

It may be more than that if I understood the article correctly.

150 atoms to encode one bit instead of 1 or 2 million? :what:

twistor59 · #8 by **twistor59** » Jan 13, 2012 8:03 pm

Holy crap that's impressive. And they say size isn't everything. Well I do anyway.

Onyx8 · #9 by **Onyx8** » Jan 13, 2012 8:04 pm

12 atoms from 1,000,000 yes? Isn't that five orders of magnitude? From 10^6 to 10^1

I'm With Stupid · **#10** by **I'm With Stupid** » Jan 13, 2012 8:09 pm

So how many atoms do you need to store a porn film? Your mum would never find it under your bed.

SafeAsMilk · **#11** by **SafeAsMilk** » Jan 13, 2012 8:14 pm

Onyx8 wrote:12 atoms from 1,000,000 yes? Isn't that five orders of magnitude? From 10^6 to 10^1

Yes, you're quite right, I read it as "five times" :picard:

spitfire7 · **#12** by **spitfire7** » Jan 14, 2012 7:24 am

Interesting. Last I had heard, they were working on testing the magnetic properties of certain metals at near-zero temperatures, as they found that some material's molecules had magnetic properties when close to 0 Kelvin. I'm interested to know how they've managed it, if they've found a way around the need for cooling.

:cheers:

Landrew · **#13** by **Landrew** » Jan 14, 2012 7:33 am

That's great. It's already hard enough not to lose the miniSD card for my phone that's smaller than a fingernail...
What's next? nanoSD?

cavarka9 · **#14** by **cavarka9** » Jan 14, 2012 7:36 am

HughMcB wrote:Crikey, this is a giant leap forward.

correction, this is a giant leap inward!

LucidFlight · **#15** by **LucidFlight** » Jan 14, 2012 7:44 am

I'm With Stupid wrote:So how many atoms do you need to store a porn film? Your mum would never find it under your bed.

70 billion atoms should do it.

Onyx8 · **#16** by **Onyx8** » Jan 14, 2012 9:18 am

But you'd never find it among all the tissues...

twistor59 · **#17** by **twistor59** » Jan 14, 2012 9:20 am

LucidFlight wrote:
I'm With Stupid wrote:So how many atoms do you need to store a porn film? Your mum would never find it under your bed.

70 billion atoms should do it.

It depends what you consider as porn. Personally, I find the behaviour of the electron wavefunctions in a single hydrogen atom, well,...... rather arousing. So for me the answer is 1.

Doubtdispelled · **#18** by **Doubtdispelled** » Jan 14, 2012 10:56 am

twistor59 wrote:
LucidFlight wrote:
I'm With Stupid wrote:So how many atoms do you need to store a porn film? Your mum would never find it under your bed.

70 billion atoms should do it.

It depends what you consider as porn. Personally, I find the behaviour of the electron wavefunctions in a single hydrogen atom, well,...... rather arousing. So for me the answer is 1.

You must have very good eyesight. But apart from that, I'll be even more impressed when they can get those atoms to alter their electron wavefunctions to indicate either a 0 or a 1. I have no clue what order of magnitude that would represent though.

sennekuyl · **#19** by **sennekuyl** » Jan 15, 2012 12:07 am

Landrew wrote:That's great. It's already hard enough not to lose the miniSD card for my phone that's smaller than a fingernail...
What's next? nanoSD?

The thing here is that there is not much reason to make the medium much smaller, so the size would increase astronomically (atomically?).

sennekuyl · **#20** by **sennekuyl** » Jan 15, 2012 12:21 am

Doubtdispelled wrote:
twistor59 wrote:
LucidFlight wrote:
I'm With Stupid wrote:So how many atoms do you need to store a porn film? Your mum would never find it under your bed.

70 billion atoms should do it.

It depends what you consider as porn. Personally, I find the behaviour of the electron wavefunctions in a single hydrogen atom, well,...... rather arousing. So for me the answer is 1.

You must have very good eyesight. But apart from that, I'll be even more impressed when they can get those atoms to alter their electron wavefunctions to indicate either a 0 or a 1. I have no clue what order of magnitude that would represent though.

If I understood you correctly, they already can. It is just the mechanism to read and write is about the size of at least a kitchen table.

Realistically, we aren't going to be carrying around these data storage mediums (which I implied we would in my previous post), but rather the datacenters will have a larger capacity and online storage will potentially be much cheaper.