Storage: What's in 'Store' for the future

INDIA: Storage of data is a mission critical task and shall always remain that way. There will always remain a need to find better solutions to store the ever growing volumes of data. Looking at the future of storage technologies that the industry is going to embrace, we discuss how file virtualization can play an important role in making enterprise data management easier with almost nil downtimes.

Also, we crystal gaze to show how Nanotechnology shall drive storage management in future. We also focus on future storage media being developed on concepts like 3D holographic storage, carbon nanotubes and heat assisted magnetic recording, revealing how, in a few years, terabytes of data would be stored on a disk as small as a conventional DVD! 

Nanotechnologies Driving Data Storage of Future

To put it in simple words, Nanotechnology deals with engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale. Generally, this deals with structures of the size 100 nanometers or smaller, and involves developing materials or devices within that size range. If mathematical conversions have not been your forte, a nanometer is a billionth part of a meter. More like a comparison of a marble with our planet.

Today, scientists are working day and night in order to develop systems that would shape the future of the data storage industry. These could help us do away with internal disk drives all together as well as the computer boot-up process, bringing up applications instantaneously when a PC or laptop is turned on. Other hardware may allow data to be stored for more than 100 years without having to change or refresh media. Moreover, such technologies bring along the potential for devices as small as flash drives to hold as much data in 10 years as the world's largest data centers held only 10 years ago.

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