Ready for a 500 terabyte iPod?

April 21, 2008, 10:19 am by Staff 37 comments

Filed under Apple, News, Portable Audio, Prototypes Tags: iPod, nanotechnology

How big is your iPod? Bet it’s not 500 terabytes, but it soon could be, thanks to researchers at the University of Glasgow.

The clever Scots have created new nanotechnology that’ll cram 500,000 GB (or just under 500 terabytes) onto a single chip just one inch square.
That’s enough space to store a mind boggling 127 million songs on a device as small as an iPod shuffle.

Explaining the science behind it all, Professor Lee Cronin said: “What we have done is find a way to potentially increase the data storage capabilities in a radical way. We have been able to assemble a functional nanocluster that incorporates two electron donating groups, and position them precisely 0.32 nm apart so that they can form a totally new type of molecular switching device.

“Molecule sized switches would lead to increasing data storage to say 4 Petabits per square inch… The fact these switches work on carbon means that they could be embedded in plastic chips so silicon is not needed and the system becomes much more flexible both physically and technologically.”

There’s no word on when (or even if) the new technology will go into production, but you can bet Apple’s already eyeing it, along with armies of other tech firms. Watch this space.

TBC | £TBC

University of Glasgow

(via Nature Nanotechnology)

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Reader Comments

spuffler

10-14-2008

Yawn.
“New Technology, yippee!” = 10 years or more from consumer devices.
“You heard it here first!” = no, I ignored it here first.
“127 Million MP3s!” Yeah, that’s REAL practical…
“iPod, iPod, iPod!” = “e260, e260, e260″.
I have to wonder if Apple was eyeing “Optical Computing”, “3D Memory” or “HD-DVD”…

User Name

10-15-2008

I wonder how many songs there are, total, in the world. Maybe not as many as 127 million?

stakerized

10-15-2008

Once bots get AI capabilities there will be entire societies of silicon-based lifeforms invisible to the naked eye

coupdetaut

10-15-2008

omg omg omg so much space, i don’t think anyone could fill that, though the concept of having 500 terabytes in my pocket is a bit to much i would be content with 12 gigs

Gerry

10-15-2008

Best thing would be that we could finally drop the awful MP3 format that throws away 80-90% of a songs frequencies to save space and takes away quality. A non-compressed song should be 60-80Mb, not 3-5Mb….

your mom

10-15-2008

Why do people always have to be so negative?…. They gave an example of 127 million mp3’s just to give you an idea of what 500 Terabytes is for those people that still don’t have a grasp on computers and technology, but think of it this way, you could put 100’s of your favorite movies on the thing along with all your favorite TV shows, music, and more… I’m sure you can even use it for other things too. You’re welcome!

Kuntrocket

10-15-2008

You’re probably right, whore.

dan-o

10-15-2008

500 TB is not too much space now a days for data users.
And is there any word on the speed of these? Size and Magnitude are nice but we still need the speed of read/write to increase to actually handle that much data in a reasonable amount of time.

ryu

10-15-2008

$5 says a side effect of defective units is third degree burns to the hands and/or face from explosions caused from over heating

anon

10-15-2008

I have about 130 million mp3s on my 1000 terabyte mp3 player, but looking back i prly shouldve gone for the 500 terabyte model, i mean, 1000 is just silly.

Jim Jones

10-15-2008

This is just like Hitler or the Nazis!

iMoop

10-15-2008

Why would any company have their eyes on this technology? Why release a 500 terabyte device when you can slowly add a couple of gigabytes every year to leech as much money from the consumer as possible?

Seabear70

10-16-2008

Forget Ipods. Imagine a server the size of an Ipod Nano. Banks of blades running on a few watts.

This completely bypasses Holographic storage.

no@way.com

10-16-2008

Oh GOD!

Think of all the porn you could store on one of those badboys!

I bet i could fit almost ALL of Jena Jamesons movies on there!

Arkaleus

10-16-2008

Imagine the level of control that can be established with such a system!

Whole new levels of tyranny and social domination can be developed for “a few watts” of power! Not only can all of your purchasing and travel behaviors be mapped and stored forever, but at this bit density your entire gene sequence can be stored and even your biological traits can be accurate modeled and predicted.

What kind of world are we building here?

Chuck

10-17-2008

How about a chip to enhance my memory?
Then I can put StumbleUpon on autofeed and download tons of neat sites that I’ll be able to remember at a nanoseconds notice.
How to survive a plane crash?
EASY
How to invest $10 and turn it into 10,000,000 in 1 hour?
Piece Of Cake.
I want one in my brain… with encryption, so the gummint won’t extract it against my will.
But the tricky part.. remembering my decrypt codephrase without the use of post-it notes.
I gotta get me one of .. of.. them mem.. memery thingies.

Mr Wulfgar

10-17-2008

A world filled with amazing things.

Mark

10-17-2008

This kind of tech is not going to be in iPods. Gov’ts around the world will be sequestering this kind of storage capability for use with AI. This is one of the types of circuitry that’s absolutely required to have a functional bot.

10-17-2008

I have 500TB in my Zune… Epic fail.

George Bush

10-17-2008

What we are talking about is the very real possibility of a New World Order. It’s a big idea!!

Nick

10-17-2008

I don’t think this will come around too soon. It will probably follow Moore’s law approximately, being used in normal devices in about (log(1000)/log(2))*1.5, or 15 years. It could be sooner, but the trend is relatively accurate, regardless of technology.

GregC

10-18-2008

I have a photo taken of a folder in windows showing a size of 6.43EB or 7,421,965,206,111,971,552 bytes

Aurora

10-18-2008

yeah, NWO my ass, you’re already corporate flunkies, they’ve got you now, it’s the Current World Order dipshits.

And people will always find a way to use technology for selfish and controlling ends, you’ve just got to find a way to upset their methods, technology allows more and more people to disrupt or assist the world order in a any form. The only difference between now and the stone age is that the mind is now more powerful than the fist.

Knowledge is power. Educate yourselves.

Rambo

10-18-2008

Moore’s Law, for those unaware, is (in layman terms), that HD storage capacity doubles every 18 months. So, from 1 TB drives today, to get to 500 would take about 13 years. It’s a fairly steady trend in HD storage technology so far.

Having said that - new, optical technology, and nano-mechanical-technology, surpasses the limitations of conventional mechanical systems we rely on today, so it could speed up the storage capacity curve.

The article refers to setting molecular switches, molecules acting as bits, which would score a completely new level of storage capability - but, realistically, that kind of practical effort is a decade away, regardless of the available science today.

Once we get down to that level of technology, however, there isn’t much more science can do to micro-size things.
Unless physics can break into a new sub-atomic science, this will be (probably) the best that can be done, and the curve will then flatten out.

What will we do when we CAN have 500Tb drives? Who knows?

…and GregC - I’m guessing that either you work at the Pentagon in the server room, or you need to re-format that sucker… :

Greed

10-19-2008

Impressive. Though like it’s been stated already; what kind of speed is going to be availible with this new technology. It’s convienent to have so much space on such a small piece of equipment, but if you can’t counter it so that it actually works, and works well, it won’t be much use.

Wade Murison

10-19-2008

im sure wen we get the 500tb drives in consumer kinda terms, quality of movies will be in the high gbs or so? like hd qualtiy extreme or watever.

atomizer

10-20-2008

when the average time of a song is 3 minutes, that would be more than 700 years of music-listening!!!!!!!!

matt

10-20-2008

omfg!! 500 tb!!
you know how much you could put on that!?
like 500 tb of porn
lol jk
but seriously thats awesome
this may make it to where the size of files becomes irrelevent, that is if this technology takes off and is affordable
you could have an entire case of high quality dvds in a small thumb drive
i really hope this works, and ill never have to worry about memory space again

FamouslyUnknown

10-21-2008

500tb, BRILLIANT! The speed would be fanatical because it is a type of solid state drive, possibly even faster than solid state. I currently hold about 100gb of mp3’s and 340gb of movies, I had to slow down due to lack of space but with a device such as this I wouldn’t have any more worries and because there are no moving parts for the drive it will last almost forever.

I don’t care so much that it is on a portable media device but the fact the technology is surfacing, this would be wicked in a Data Center environment and temps would stay relatively cool and not to mention the room you would save.

catmac42

10-22-2008

Awesome idea, love the idea of that much storage, but my worry is that we’re nearing bandwidth capacity, and the internet providers won’t be able to keep up with the rise in bandwidth demand as a result of falling storage prices…

shorty2lo69

10-22-2008

guys lol this nub me says this technologies supposedly out. on his zune he says he has 500 tb lol is this true does neone think?

FamouslyUnknown

10-23-2008

500tb on a Zune? No way, if iPod has yet to manufacture the new technology there is no way Zune would have the jump. Your friend probably has a 512mb…

Scott

10-24-2008

I want it…that’s all!

Steve8274

11-9-2008

lots of pr0nz

adamgalas

11-26-2008

4 petabytes/square inch is the theoretical limit said one of the scientists who inveneted this thing.

Incredible, now think of this.

The Ipod Touch uses 4 flash memory storage units. Assuming each is 1 square inch then an Ipod Touch could hold 4 such chips, for a total of 16 Petabytes of storage, 32 X more than the article talked about.

That would be almost 4.1 billion songs! Which would take about 23,200 years to listen to.

Or you could store 5.6 million HD quality movies on that sucker!

Every movie, every TV show ever made and every song ever recorded. Heck, through in every book ever written!

Of course, with that much data accessing it would require voice recognition and wicked smart AI.

But think of this:

The Ipod touch has about 12 sqaure inches of space (flat, 3X4 leaving some room for batteries and such).

So the maximum limit for an Ipod Touch or Iphone is 48 Petabytes of storage.

What can 48 Petabytes store?

12.2 billion songs,
17.5 million HD Movies

With this tech one could theoretically store all the knoweldge of mankind in an Ipod!

Accessing it with AI intelligent voice recognition tech.

Imagine something like the computer on the Starship enterprise, able to bring up any data you want, in seconds, and now imagine that in an Ipod!

The future is bright indeed!

jesus

12-6-2008

Holy crap! thats a butload of space!!!!! but i hope apple doesnt take it. cuz then all those rich snobby noob posers will all get it to make themselves seem cool by haveing alot of songs. but they wont even fill up more than 1000. anyways i want it. just to have that many songs on an ipod is astonishing. i thought that the ipod classic was impressive. is there a way i can get myself one of those chips. just for myself?

Phil E. Drifter