Recently, Neuralytix was invited by Cerabyte to visit its research and development (R&D) labs in Vienna, Austria. Cerabyte is a start-up founded to create a storage technology that will store and preserve data for very long periods of time (decades to centuries).
Cerabyte was founded by Christian and Alexander Pflaum as well as Martin Kunze in 2022. Christian Pflaum has a background in engineering, economics, and business development. Alexander Pflaum is a serial entrepreneur with economics and mechatronics background. Kunze has a deep background in ceramics. It was Kunze who posited the use of ceramic materials as a medium for the immutable long term (possibly infinite) preservation and conservation of digital data.
Contrary to popular belief, the term ceramics is not limited to bathroom and kitchen tiles or pottery. According to the American Ceramic Society, “ceramics [materials] are nonmetallic, inorganic, crystalline materials … ceramic and glass materials share many properties in common, including being extremely hard, chemically inert, and good thermal insulators.”
The founders secured several millions of euros in government and research grant money to prove their hypothesis and build a proof-of-concept. Using these grants, Cerabyte eventually settled on the use of a proprietary Ceramics-On-Glass medium. The medium is a thin and flexible display glass with a patented dark ceramic coating.
To store data on the medium, Cerabyte uses a highly calibrated and accurate laser beam in conjunction with a Digital Micromirror Device (DMD) to literally “punch” holes at nanometer scale into its medium. This process is called photonic shockwave.
Neuralytix proposes that Cerabyte’s technology is analogous to chiseling words into stone. Today, we can still see and read the words that ancient Egyptians, Greek, Romans, and other cultures have left for us after several millennia.
Like words chiseled in stone, Cerabyte’s technology is a write-once technology. However, unlike words chiseled in stone, which is subject to being erased due to weathering, Cerabyte’s technology is not expected to be affected by time, extreme temperatures and humidity, or harsh environmental conditions on earth and in space. Independent (albeit simulated) tests by the Institute of Material Science at the TU Vienna indicate that data stored on Cerabyte’s technology should last more than 100 years.
Cerabyte coats a thin display glass medium with a ceramic layer on each side using physical vapor deposition (PVD). PVD is particularly effective for enhancing the durability and scratch resistance. It is widely used in industries such as automotive, electronics, and aerospace.
The casing is the same form factor as a Linear Tape-Open (LTO) cartridge. By bringing its technology using this form factor, it is immediately compatible with existing robotic tape libraries. In fact, several existing robotic tape library manufacturers have already indicated its interests in partnering with Cerabyte.
Neuralytix believes that using an LTO tape cartridge form-factor will accelerate the commercial acceptance and adoption of Cerabyte’s technology.
The primary use case for Cerabyte’s technology is the long-term immutable preservation of significant amounts of “cold” data intended to be retained from decades to centuries with some of the data being accessible within seconds in a library.
However, there is a significant difference in application between Cerabyte’s technology compared to existing media available on the market today such as high-capacity hard disk drives (HDDs) or linear-open tape. While the latter can support frequent access to the data stored, Cerabyte can provide such access with a lower latency through the use of optimized library modules with integrated readers. In fact, reading data stored on Cerabyte cartridges requires a separate reader.
The need for a separate reader is not unique to Cerabyte. Many alternative long-term archiving technologies proposed such as DNA, photographic film, and other innovators also require separate readers. In full disclosure, Neuralytix has not yet been exposed to all the other very long-term storage and archiving technologies.
In our opinion, Cerabyte’s technology, especially the form factor, presents a viable solution for organizations that wish to store large amounts of write-once data store (forever). This includes data that subjected to regulation (such as HIPPA); scientific research data; seismic, geological, or atmospheric data; or government records.
Conceivably, there is also a consumer application for Cerabyte’s product – service providers could present a solution to aggregate and store photos or personal data that individuals may wish to preserve for future generations.
While Neuralytix has seen first-hand Cerabyte’s technology at work, Cerabyte still faces the challenge of delivering a cost-effective MVP, winning over customer confidence in its technology over other technologies being proposed, and ultimately customer acceptance and adoption of its technology.