The aim of data storage is to keep the data secure and feasible for the future. “The way we used to store the data decade ago, is worth a giggle.” says an IT project manager from EssayHelp Australia. Today everyone wonders how was the survival possible with punch cards, tape, hard drives, floppy dishes, etc.

To push the technology forward, researchers and inventors work to enhance the performance, capacity, and size of storage media. Few Futuristic Data Storage Technologies

Following are Given a Few futuristic Data Storage Technologies:

Shingled magnetic recording

The per-drive storage capacity and storage density are increased by the technology of magnetic storage and Shingled magnetic recording (SMR). In shingled magnetic recording the previously written magnetic tracks can be overlapped by the new tracks. The track density gets higher by getting previous track narrower. The recording heads get wider than reading heads and prevent former from having the same width as the latter.

Therefore, in this new hard drive technology, TPI (track per inch) or platter density is increased as the platters are layered on the top of each other. SMR technology offers tremendous potential by decreasing inter-track spaces and increasing TPI hence the overall capacity increases. In the same physical footprint, the end product looks like Perpendicular Magnetic Recording drive with higher capacity. However, in the performance perspective, the experience of the user will change dramatically with the SMR technology.

What was the problem with the perpendicular magnetic recording?

Currently, people use PMR i.e. perpendicular magnetic recording. PMR uses parallel track layout and there are a few physical limitations with the use of PMR. A few difficulties are faced in scaling drive capacity. The size of bit on media is reduced because the density on drive platter is increased. The grain size on the media must be reduced by the manufacturers to maintain SNR (signal-to-noise) to read. However, the energy barrier is created while flipping the bit size to reduce. Thermal energy reduces data integrity and flips the bit better.

The strength of the energy barrier can be increased and flipped magnetization risk can be mitigated by increasing the coercivity of the material. To enable more tracks on the platter, the size of a write head is reduced by the manufacturers to reduce the issue. The occurrence of write and change of magnetization on social media is becoming difficult to be prevented, with the smaller write fields that are resultant of smaller write heads.

Benefits of SMR

The writer’s head is kept large in size in an SMR drive and the writer is not scaled down, thus, the problem is solved. Without compromising with the stability and readability, the media gets magnetized effectively, with the larger writer.

By differentiating SMR and PMR you can understand the benefits of SMR technology. SMR shows no difficulty such as width problem and with narrower read head capacity over time is increased. Capacity gains are achieved by shrinking the grain sizes.

Challenges with SMR

With SMR layout there is a challenge and that is the single track is narrower than the write head. If you don’t want your data to be destroyed on overlapping the track, data must be written sequentially to an SMR hard drive.

Helium derives

Helium derive is a type of hard drive that is used to increase the storage density and potential speed by exploiting the lightness characteristics of helium gas.

The density of helium is lesser than air so it creates less turbulence and drag thus the potential speed and density is increased. In the space of five patters, seven platters can be placed in the conventional hard drives due to density increased by helium. The motor required in helium drive is smaller and consumes 23% less power to spin the disk. Also, it runs 5-degree cooler and quieter. The storage per GB costs lower and the helium-filled drives can pack in more disks.

DNA

DNA is the molecule that stores biological information and it is now the new storage of technology of the future. Incredible storage density is offered by the DNA, 2.2 petabytes per gram. According to research by Harvard researchers, digital information was encoded in DNA, comprising one JPEG images, JavaScript program, and HTML.

This means that a single teaspoon of DNA hard drive can comprise the data of existing around the world in it, for example, every single song, book, movie, etc. Moreover, DNA is very supreme for long-term storage beside the factor of space-saving. Optical disks and hard drives are susceptible to humidity and heat. DNA can last up to 400,000 years.

The grand scheme of upcoming technologies will help in bringing an accelerating change. The technology innovations are essential and with these innovations, the jobs opportunities will also increase. The above given 5 futuristic storage technologies are ready to use by researchers and inventors. Also, these data storage technologies will change the way we store data today.