Century Scale Data Storage
Martin Kunze Steffen Hellmold
Cerabyte is an emerging technology enabling accessible permanent data storage. The technology was demonstrated in 2023 via an end-to-end prototype in a data center rack size form factor. The technology uses Ceramic-on-glass sheets as media. These are stacked inside of LTO-shaped cartridges leveraging tape automation infrastructure. Cerabyte data storage withstands a number of threat scenarios and does not exhibit bit rot even at extreme temperatures or intense UV or radiation exposure. Femtosecond lasers are used to punch holes in the ceramic layer encoding the data in matrices, high-speed microscope cameras enable the readback of the data.

For the bake-off Session we will dip a Cerabyte data carrier repeatedly into boiling water and then bake (!) it in a hot pizza-oven (together with a piece of pizza!) and then let it cool down and read the data carrier with a handheld digital microscope projected to a monitor. The coding will be done with QR-codes which then the audience could read out with their QR reader from their own smartphones (even in flight-mode!)

Cerabyte is a storage medium that is agnostic to whatever file format is saved on Cerabyte.
approaches to preservation start 2 preserve