Ultra long term storage company Cerabyte has raised an undisclosed some from vendor Pure Storage.
The startup is developing a ceramic storage system it says can last more than 5,000 years.
“As the industry is heading towards the Yottabyte Era, sustainable data storage — which eliminates the need for data migration and thereby scales down the energy footprint and TCO — will be critical to harness the data tsunami ahead,” said Christian Pflaum, CEO, Cerabyte.
The company deposits a ceramic nano layer on a thin substrate, using laser pulses to write date on the layer. It aims to launch a 1PB rack demo system this year, a 5PB/rack system by 2025, and as much as 100PB/rack in 2028-30.
“Pure’s investment in Cerabyte and joint partnership will allow us to offer our customers sustainable and immutable data storage solutions that are revolutionizing the industry,” said John (Coz) Colgrove, founder and chief visionary officer, Pure Storage.
“By disrupting the archival storage market, we are paving the way for longer lasting and easier to manage long-term storage.”
As part of the investment, Colgrove will join Cerabyte's board.
Cerabyte was one of two projects highlighted by the US National Academy of Sciences as potentially alleviating a coming data storage crunch.
Alongside it was Microsoft's Project Silica, which instead uses lasers to embed data within silica glass. DCD profiled that technology in the latest magazine, with the feature itself set to last 10,000 years.
Pure Storage provides all-flash data storage products and solutions for data centers.
