- First generation system is slower than tape but aims to scale up quickly by 2030
- Cerabyte’s roadmap involves physics, so advanced that it sounds like sci-fi with helium ion beams
- Long -term capacity is related to speculative technology that is not yet found outside of laboratory settings
Munich-based start-up Cerabyte develops what it claims can become a disturbing alternative to magnetic tape in archive data storage.
With the help of fifty lasers to etched data on ceramic layers in glass tablets, the company depicts racks that hold more than 100 petabytes (100,000 TB) data by the end of the decade.
Despite these bold goals, practical limitations mean that it may take decades before such a capacity sees use in the real world.
The journey to 100PB racks starts with slower, first generation systems
CMO and co-founder Martin Kunze outlined the vision of the recent A3 Tech Live event and noticed that the system is drawing on “Femtosecond laser etching of a ceramic recording layer on a glass tablet substrate.”
These tablets are in cartridges and shooted by robotic arms inside the tape library cabinets, a well-known setup with an unconventional VRI.
The pilot system expected in 2026 aims to deliver 1 petabyte per day. Stand with a 90-second walk to the first byte and only 100 Mbps in sustained bandwidth.
Over the course of several update cycles, Cerabyte claims that the benefit will rise, and by 2029 or 2030 it expects “a 100-plus PB archive storage rack with 2GBPS ribbon width and time of under 10-seconds to First Byte.”
The company’s long -term projections are even more ambitious, and it believes that Fifthosekund Laser Technology could develop into “a particle beam matrix tech” capable of reducing bit size from 300NM to 3nm.
With Helium Ion Beam Writing in 2045, Cerabyte represents a system that lasts up to 100,000 PB in a single rack.
However, such claims are steeped in speculative physics and should, as the report says, “amazed, but which is set up as a realizable technology for the time being.”
Cerabyte’s declared benefits over competitors such as Microsoft’s Project Silica, Holomem and DNA storage include greater Media cone, faster access times and lower costs per year. Terabytes.
“To last more than 100 years compared to Tape’s 7 to 15 years,” Kunze said, the solution is designed to handle long -term storage with lower environmental impact.
He also said the technology could send data “at 1-2 Gbps versus Tape’s 1 Gbps,” and “costs $ 1 per TB against Tape’s $ 2 per TB.”
So far, the company has secured about $ 10 million in seed capital and over $ 4 million in grants.
It is now looking for A-round VC financing, with backers, including Western Digital, Pure Storage and In-Q-Tel.
Whether Cerabyte becomes a viable alternative to traditional archive storage methods or ends, as another theoretical progress depends not only on density but on long -term reliability and cost -effectiveness.
Even if it does not become a practical alternative to large HDDs in 2045, Cerabyte’s work can still affect the future of long-term data storage, just not on the timeline, IT projects.
Via block sandfiles
