By Ben Morris, Editor, BBC Know-how of Enterprise
![BBC Ian Crawford, chief information officer, Imperial War Museum](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/7535/live/fa92a1f0-2187-11ef-9628-ff2abcc9602e.jpg.webp)
The yr 2039 would possibly look like a good distance off, however Ian Crawford is already planning for it.
It should mark the one hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of World Battle Two – an enormous yr for his employer, the Imperial Battle Museum.
Mr Crawford is chief info officer on the museum, and oversees a mission to digitise its large assortment of images, audio and movie.
With a group of round 24,000 hours of movie and video, and 11 million pictures, it is a huge process.
And within the run-up to 2039, World Battle II materials might be a precedence.
Making digital copies of these historic sources is important as the unique copies degrade over time, and can, in the future, be misplaced eternally.
“If you’ve obtained the one copy, you need confidence that your storage system is dependable,” says Ian Crawford.
The quantity of information wanted for such long-term storage is rising on a regular basis, as the newest scanners can document paperwork and movies in nice element.
“It is potential to develop is big actually,” says Mr Crawford.
“We’re now taking a look at objects themselves and scanning in 3D – that may generate very massive information.”
![Someone holding four LTO tapes. Three are in a rack.](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/ef4f/live/79fcbc50-2188-11ef-9628-ff2abcc9602e.jpg.webp)
This deluge of information is not only hitting museums – it is pouring down all over the place.
Companies are shopping for more room for back-up information, hospitals want someplace to retailer data, authorities wants a spot to stash rising quantities of data.
“We’re persevering with to create insane quantities of information,” says Simon Robinson, principal analyst at analysis agency Enterprise Technique Group.
“For many organisations – it varies lots – their information quantity is doubling each 4 to 5 years. And in some industries it’s rising a lot sooner than that,” he says.
Knowledge that must be held for a very long time will not be saved in conventional information centres, these huge warehouses, with racks of servers and blinking lights. These operations are designed for information that must be accessed and up to date incessantly.
As an alternative, the most well-liked method to hold information for the long-term is on tape. Particularly a format often known as LTO (Linear Tape Open), the newest model being known as LTO-9.
The tapes themselves will not be in contrast to outdated VHS tapes, however a bit smaller and extra sq..
Contained in the cassette is a kilometre of magnetic tape, able to storing 18 terabytes of information.
That is lots – only one tape can maintain the identical quantity of information as nearly 300 commonplace smartphones.
The Imperial Battle Museum in Duxford makes use of a tape system from Spectra Logic. The machine, across the dimension of a giant wardrobe, can maintain as much as 1,500 LTO tapes.
Such LTO programs dominate the marketplace for long-term storage. They’ve been round for many years, and have proved themselves to be dependable.
It is also fairly low cost, which is vital as usually prospects wish to pay as little as attainable for long-term storage.
![HoloMem A researcher at HoloMem working with lasers](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/ee30/live/3d7c09b0-2189-11ef-9628-ff2abcc9602e.jpg.webp)
However some are satisfied it may be executed higher.
In a former wallpaper manufacturing unit in Chiswick, west London, a start-up agency has been creating a long-term storage system that makes use of lasers to burn tiny holograms right into a light-sensitive polymer.
Chief govt Charlie Gale factors out that with magnetic tape, information can solely be saved on the floor, whereas holograms can retailer information in a number of layers.
“You are able to do issues known as multiplexing, whereby you’ll be able to layer a number of units of data in a single area. That is actually type of the superpower of what we’re doing. And we consider we will put extra info in much less area than ever earlier than,” he says.
HoloMem’s polymer blocks can deal with excessive temperatures, with out the info changing into corrupted – between -14C to 160C.
![HoloMem Charlie Gale, HoloMem chief executive](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/3665/live/bebf9f00-2189-11ef-9b51-e948f3920974.jpg.webp)
By comparability, magnetic tape must be kept between 16C and 25C, which suggests important heating and cooling prices, significantly in nations with excessive temperatures.
Tape additionally wants changing after round 15 years, whereas the polymer is nice for not less than 50 years.
Mr Gale notes that, because the laser chemically modifications the polymer, the info cannot be tampered with, as soon as it has been written.
Holomem’s prototype system, which is able to be capable of retailer and retrieve information, might be prepared later this yr.
Mr Gale says the price of the system has been saved down by utilizing commonplace, extensively obtainable elements, together with the laser – so, he is assured that HoloMem will be capable of match, or beat the prices of magnetic tape.
![Microsoft Research Racks of glass data storage panels at Microsoft Research](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/5d38/live/bd7d0a10-21cf-11ef-ae4f-1f6fda078115.jpg.webp)
HoloMem will should be aggressive, as looming over the market is a formidable competitor.
By way of its analysis arm, Microsoft is creating its personal long-term information storage system.
Like HoloMem it has determined that it is time to transfer on from magnetic tape, however Microsoft has chosen glass because it storage materials.
Known as Challenge Silica, the system makes use of highly effective lasers to create tiny structural modifications within the glass, known as voxels that can be utilized to retailer information. The voxels are extremely small and may be packed into layers.
Microsoft says {that a} 2mm thick piece of glass concerning the dimension of a DVD would be capable of retailer greater than seven terabytes of information.
The system shops the glass panes on racks, the place they are often accessed by small crab-like robots that zip alongside rails.
Low cost and sturdy, glass is a gorgeous storage medium says Richard Black, who heads up Challenge Silica.
“It is just about proof against temperature, humidity, particulates, electromagnetic fields,” says Mr Black.
It may doubtlessly protect information for tons of and maybe 1000’s of years.
Such a system may, in the future, be built-in into Microsoft’s large cloud computing enterprise, Azure.
However that’s a way off because the system has years of growth forward of it.
![getty A restored Supermarine Spitfire Mark I aircraft (](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/06c6/live/7f3f1d10-218e-11ef-9b51-e948f3920974.jpg.webp)
Again in Duxford, the Imperial Battle Museum, like many organisations, has been experimenting with synthetic intelligence. They not too long ago examined whether or not AI may establish totally different fashions of Spitfire in photos from its picture catalogue.
Mr Crawford thinks that AI might be extremely helpful in cataloguing its digital library, work that may take people tons of of years.
The power of AI to trawl by means of huge quantities of information has made maintaining that information much more vital – there might be one thing helpful lurking there.
“Previously enterprise was archiving information simply in case they wanted it. Now there’s an precise enterprise motive why they could wish to return and do some analytics,” says Mr Robinson.