Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

TheSquarecow t1_izwhhxt wrote

I remember 20-30 years ago, people were screaming for better/cheaper data storage options, and there was a news report every week about a new "Harddisk" made from crystals, metals, sellotape, unobtanium, wood or cow poop that was supposed to store a bazillion exabytes per square inch.

These days everyone wants bigger/better/cheaper batteries, and there is a news article every week about a new battery chemistry made from crystals, metals, sellotape, unobtanium, wood or cow poop.

Progress can only happen when people try out stuff. But hailing every little thing that worked in the lab (and got blown out of proportion by universities and instituions eager for PR and journalists eager for clicks) as the new game-changer is really, really tiring. Show me that something can be made, practically and economically, at scale. At which point I don't NEED a news article since the thing will be available in stores.

12

misadventurist t1_izxb68o wrote

Yeah but we've had massive breakthroughs in solid state storage since then. I remember 16 mb usb drives. Now I have a 1 tb USB 3.0 that was dirt cheap.

6

draeath t1_izxciz2 wrote

Even if you restrict consideration to the same type of storage, we have improved them.

Pretty wild way to squeeze a bit more density out of it!

3

FeFiFoShizzle t1_izwo38l wrote

This is literally a new version of an existing technology tho. It's not really the same as whatever cow poop (likely onion too, right?) Thing you are talking about.

2

WritingTheRongs t1_izyp1d0 wrote

dude, 30 years ago my Macintosh had...wait for it... a zero gigabyte hard drive. zero! you booted from a floppy disk ffs. Hard Disks have gotten massively bigger since zero. . I credit the cow poop.

2

js1138-2 t1_j00iu4s wrote

All those $100 five terabyte drives were once lab curiosities.

2