Storage
cannot shield magnetic fields,” he explained. “So, all the information is at least partly damaged, if not completely deleted.” Against this backdrop, Ewigbyte is developing a radically different
approach: storing data on glass surfaces using ultra-short pulse lasers. “We store data on the glass surface by ablating the information into the glass,” Klewitz said. “It’s similar to a punch card, but confined to the surface, otherwise you pay in speed.” Te process involves using a laser beam to inscribe QR codes
directly into the glass. Each laser shot can embed several kilobytes of data, and with repetition rates of up to 60,000 pulses per second, Klewitz projected write speeds of around 500 megabytes per second per head. With multiple heads in a rack, throughput could reach four gigabytes per second. Reading is performed optically, using microscopes and cameras to capture the QR codes in parallel. “We etch the glass on the surface, and the QR code or the DPD code is, of course, generic,” Klewitz explained. “We will not try to lock in a customer with our proprietary code.” Te durability of the glass is central to the proposition. Unlike
magnetic or solid-state media, which degrade over years, glass promises lifespans measured in millennia. Klewitz described ongoing research into identifying the “ideal glass” among tens of thousands of variants, with ageing simulations designed to ensure stability for 10,000 years. “Tere are about 50,000 different sorts of glass, and it is crucial for us to find the ideal glass,” he said. “Tis is a typical industrial development process – you start with the available glass, you find that it does not have the optimal parameters, and then you do research, and over time, you will develop better glass.” Security, too, is embedded at the physical layer. Once a bit is written
into the glass, it cannot be erased or altered without leaving visible evidence. “We bring the whole security thing down to the physical layer,” Klewitz said. “Once this is written, you have these holes where you have your bits. It is impossible to close a hole on a glass surface without leaving evidence.” He described plans to incorporate holograms into the glass as proof of authenticity, with serial numbers tied into checksum algorithms. “Once this hologram is in, it’s like money,” he said. “Suddenly we have something, and it’s an absolute original, physical, valuable piece of glass.” Ewigbyte intends to operate its own facilities and offer storage as a
service. “We don’t want to sell hardware,” Klewitz said. “We want to sell data storage as a service. We want to develop our own proprietary hardware and run this in our own way.” By housing racks in dedicated warehouses rather than conventional data centres, the company aims to eliminate cooling and humidity control costs. “When you have plenty of space that you don’t have to cool, you only have to control against physical attacks.” Redundancy will be achieved using familiar techniques, but adapted
to the new medium. Klewitz described block-level architectures similar to RAID, with physical glass carriers serving as replication units. “Te logic is the same,” he explained. “You can implement RAID by writing two identical carriers, then add a third with XOR parity to create RAID 3. Even if one carrier fails, the data remains recoverable. Tis can be done at the block level or at the carrier level. Te principles are unchanged – the difference is that redundancy is now applied physically, whereas in hard drives it was logical.” Klewitz positioned Ewigbyte’s solution as a complement to existing object storage infrastructures, designed to address the challenge
www.pcr-online.biz
of cold data. “Organisations using today’s object storage face this issue,” he explained. “Tey still need hardware to manage storage. We have very interested people saying that if we can deliver the service, they could integrate us through an S3-style interface within their infrastructure, routing hot data to the specialist providers who specialise in it, and directing cold data to us.” Te vision extends to large-scale automated warehouses, where
cartridges of glass media could be stored and retrieved by robotics. Klewitz has visited modern logistics facilities capable of moving hundreds of items per second, and he suggested similar automation could underpin petabyte-scale glass archives. “Ultimately, we will have a data density of six petabytes per cubic metre, which is possible,” he said. “We will have our own specialised warehouse, and in the core of this warehouse is our writing and reading facility. And then we just need to manage the logistics process.”
For the global market, Klewitz predicted that optical storage will
squeeze out tape and relegate HDDs to niche roles. “My prediction is that the 70-year-old technology of tape will be squeezed out first,” he said. “And the second thing is that HDD is becoming a niche market.” Ultimately, he argued, the decisive metric will remain cost per terabyte. “If you can deliver something better than tape for a dollar per terabyte, you will win.” Klewitz acknowledged that costs are currently uncompetitive
for a startup, but he projected break-even within five to ten years, depending on advances in glass and learning curves. He also noted that specific market sectors, such as government agencies safeguarding irreplaceable data, may pay premiums for the assurance of immutability and resilience against electromagnetic pulses. “Tere are sectors that may decide they need to keep the data forever,” he said. “If you are able store data forever, as well as protect against physical attack, then it will happen.” For the channel, long-held assumptions about storage economics
and technology are under strain, and new paradigms are emerging. Glass-based storage may not replace existing media overnight, but its promise of permanence, security, and sustainability positions it as a contender in the evolving landscape of cold data. As Klewitz said: “Tis is a black swan event. Tis is the thing where we need to be different and try to develop a business model that relies more on data speed than on density.”
January/February 2026 | 39
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
