Truemors
is reporting from
Member
NP Rank:
NP Rank:
New Flash Drive Holds 50 Terabytes!
Share:
by phrolen | September 22, 2007 at 03:13 pm
14078 views | 17 Recommendations | 17 comments
Photos
Funded by both the U.S. military and the EU, a new media storage device that uses "Bug proteins" is in development at Harvard medical school and threatens to revolutionize the way the world stores its data. To put things into perspective, the average flash drive sold in the US today is between 2 and 4 gigabytes; it takes about 10,000 gigabytes to comprise 1 terabyte. The technology is slated to become available in as little as 18 months. Welcome to science fiction ladies and gentlemen. It only takes a small amount of imagination to conceptualize the effects of such immense data storing capability on modern culture.
prototype USB drive using bug protein to store data in the neighborhood of around 50 terabytes worth of data could be here in less then 18 months. This idea first started out by coating DVDs with a layer of protein so that one day solid state memory could hold so much information that storing data on your computer hard drive will be obsolete, says Professor V Renugopalakrishnan of the Harvard Medical School in Boston while reporting on his findings at the International Conference on Nanoscience and Nanotechnology in Brisbane this week.
“What this will do eventually is eliminate the need for hard drive memory completely,” he says. Renugopalakrishnan says high-capacity storage devices like the new protein-based DVDs will be essential to the defense, medical and entertainment industries. These trade in terabytes of information with the transfer of information such as satellite images, imaging scans and movies. “You have a compelling need that is not going to be met with the existing magnetic storage technology,” he says.
Renugopalakrishnan says the new protein-based DVD will have advantages over current optical storage devices (such as the Blue-ray). It will be able to store at least 20 times more than the Blue-ray and eventually even up to 50,000 gigabytes (about 50 terabytes) of information, he says. Membrane proteins These membrane proteins are being used to generate the first protein-based information storage system to store terabytes of information The star at the centre of the high-capacity DVD is a light-activated protein found in the membrane of a salt marsh microbe Halobacterium salinarum. The protein, called bacteriorhodopsin (bR), captures and stores sunlight to convert it to chemical energy.
When light shines on bR, it is converted to a series of intermediate molecules each with a unique shape and color before returning to its ‘ground state’. The intermediates generally only last for hours or days. But Renugopalakrishnan and colleagues modified the DNA that produces bR protein to produce an intermediate that lasts for more than several years, which paves the way for a binary system to store data. “The ground state could be the zero and any of the intermediates could be the one,” he says. The scientists also engineered the bR protein to make its intermediates more stable at the high temperatures generated by storing terabytes of data.
The flip side Renugopalakrishnan says making large amounts of information so portable on high-capacity removable storage devices will make it easier for information to fall into the wrong hands. “Unfortunately science can be used and abused. Information can be stolen very quickly,” he says. “One has to have some safeguards there.” In conjunction with NEC in Japan, Renugopalakrishnan’s team has produced a prototype device and estimate a USB flash drive will be commercialized in 12 months and a DVD in 18 to 24 months. The work has been funded by a range of US military, government, academic institutions and commercial companies, as well as the European Union.
What is NowPublic?
NowPublic lets people work together to cover news events around the world.
Most Recommended Comment
Crowd Power
phrolen
Billings, Montana, United States
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (17)
at 15:20 on September 22nd, 2007
Wow. Just... wow.
at 05:57 on September 23rd, 2007
simply amazing! the effects of this marvellous piece of technology can
and will revolutionize the way information is used and dispensed in day
to day life.. hope it hits the market soon!!
at 06:42 on September 23rd, 2007
phrolen, great stuff! I attended an IEEE conference on nano-technology as a participant years ago; it's a fascinating field. That conference focused on DOD, NASA, and university research and applications. This story applies to that!
at 11:55 on September 23rd, 2007
"What's on your iPod?"
"... Everything..."
at 12:31 on September 16th, 2008
10,000 gigabytes is not 1 terabye. Simple math you fail.
at 05:51 on November 4th, 2008
Sorry i am just a cheap desi kid who goes like "Me likey study SIMPLE MATH! Math cool!"
at 15:57 on January 25th, 2009
omg think about it. a 2 gig usb costs lik 15 bucks....15*50,000=$750,000 thats a lot of money...
at 15:59 on January 25th, 2009
so even...
according to tripodal, that would still be 50000*15=$75,000
still a ton of money
;)
at 09:54 on June 20th, 2009
Actually, it is $750,000
at 14:33 on July 7th, 2009
actually... if 2 gigs is 15$, then 1 gig is 7.50. Then it's 50,000 gigs * $7.50/gig = $375,000.
Or, for the physics guys:
$15/2 Gigs * 50,000 Gigs = $15 * 25,000 (scalar quantity)= $375,000
at 10:54 on March 21st, 2009
holy crap thats all i have to say if this hits the market i am tearing out my hdd and buying like 15 of these
my little dream
( shoveing one or two in my laptop and four in my dekstop and then devoting 2 to ram and the like and then i shall take over the world with my ultamite super computers!!!)
if this realy does happen thought the bit with 50 tb thumb drives i could imagine the market would be flooded and all new computers will be useing them perhaps the companys will even place one in your existing computer for a price or maybe free but the posiblitys are limitless if the likes of these are produced and when i say limitless i mean also danguras as people could aford these cheaply i imagine as paying the forementioned 75k doesnt seem reasonable i imagnine at first they will cost in excess of 100 dollars but the price will come down as they flood the market and make all other drives obsulte any ways back the fact this would be danguras because they could be bought cheep (most likely at least) terrorist organizations could store data in several chunks on several difrent drives in a giant group of people with these devices and we would never be able to get all of thier data or any of it like imagine this
every person has a puzzle peice however only certin peices go to one puzle the puzzle were after is the one that the terrorists are scrambleing in the form of drives with thier data that is securely hidden and we would never know what thier doing cause its so much easier to hide data in blind sight sense every one would have one no one would question any one if the flash drive might have importants on it
at 09:43 on June 3rd, 2009
I'm pretty sure this is all fake. 50 Terabytes out of bug DNA? I couldn't read this article with a straight face. HA HA HA. What, was this article submitted on April Fool's day, because that's what it sounds like. I've heard some wacky, unbelievable stuff on the internet, but this takes the cake. The whole concept could, for me, be taken more seriously if they didn't come up with the hilarious idea about using bug DNA. rofl.
Bug DNA. Bug DNA. lol, that sounds very permanent (sarcasm). Even if that memory came out, could you imagine how unstable, unreliable, this would be if it used bug data? I think the would thing would lose all of it's data at least once a month, that is, IF it comes out. I wouldn't rely on bug dna to store important files, and if the government is smart, they won't either.
Even IF this manages to make it's way to the market, it won't be for at LEAST 6 year. They say it'll be 18 months, but I doubt it. I hear all the time that something will be coming out very soon and I never hear about it again, until about ten years later, other times never. And if it does hit the market, you'll have to pay for the nose for it. A 50 terabyte flash drive would cost AT LEAST $8,000 and the prices wouldn't drop very fast either.
The whole concept is hilarious. And the fact that people take it seriously makes it even funnier yet.
at 12:24 on June 3rd, 2009
well actually this sounds like it can be done. chemical energy is energy nonetheless and if you just make sure you have your ones and zeros down your set. It just takes a creative person to think out the box and come up with this.Im a cynic myself but I can still see when something has a chance, besides, are you a biologist , justandotherguy. . .
at 09:24 on June 28th, 2009
What is the matter with you guys?
i'm only 11 and i know that 1 terabyte = 1,024 gigabytes
so 50 terabytes would = 51,200 gigabytes
so i estamate it would cost about...
$397,500
take a math class you losers
at 08:34 on July 1st, 2009
This isnt a math quiz u idiot just read the report and quit with the
stupid coments.11 years old tell your mom to change your diapers moron.
at 14:35 on July 7th, 2009
Hej man,
He picked up on the major math fail up above. I give him props.
at 18:39 on August 3rd, 2009
The Cynic, no I'm not a biologist. But I read popular science, and I see countless articles in "development" that I never hear anything about ever again. It could happen. But I personally doubt it. This article is old and there are NO updates, so I doubt there are even perusing it. But we're all entitled to our opinions, and only time will tell who's right. This article seems as far-fetched as this one:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/07/28/Your-Car-and-Home-Could-Soon-Be-Powered-By-Your-Urine.aspx