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The Connection, Inc has been serving the New Jersey area since 1992, providing IT Support such as technical helpdesk support, computer support and consulting to small and medium-sized businesses.

Forget Micro SD Cards, the Future is Molecular-Level Data Storage

Forget Micro SD Cards, the Future is Molecular-Level Data Storage

As far as leaps in computing go, this one’s pretty tiny: a research team from IBM has managed to store data on a single atom. Despite the microscopic size of the result, the impact is potentially huge when one considers the effects this discovery could have on computing.


The research team was conducting experiments concerning high-density storage, trying to see how small a medium they could record storage on. At the end of their highly complex process, it turned out that a literal bit of data could be stored on a single atom.

For reference, current drives use 100,000 atoms to store each bit.

Even more impressive, the data recorded on two atoms could be read with a mere nanometer in between the host atoms, meaning that many technologies we see today could soon become much, much smaller.

Before you get your hopes up about phones that can hold entire libraries of data, you should know that this experiment was simply that--an experiment. This single-atom tech is so sensitive, it requires the most controlled conditions in order to work. For example, the process has to be kept at a remarkably low temperature. The point was to find the smallest possible reliable memory bank, and they found it.

This is not to say, however, that atomic storage will never be seen. This research will help toward that goal significantly. So who knows, perhaps we'll see this experiment’s influence in the future--ideally sooner than later.

Consider just how drastically data storage has changed over the past few decades, where brick-sized mechanical hard disk drives went from holding a couple megabytes of data (enough for a single MP3 file), to an era where hundreds of thousands of megabytes can be stored on a Micro SD card that’s smaller than a thumbnail. Pretty cool, right?

What can the practical application of this technology present humanity? Do you think that it is the beginning of a whole new age of computing? What kinds of solutions do you expect nanotechnology to produce? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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On-Site Backup vs. Cloud-Based Backup, Which is Better?

On-Site Backup vs. Cloud-Based Backup, Which is Better?

There’s no doubting that data backup is a critical component of any small and medium-sized business’s infrastructure. Backup and disaster recovery is important in the event that your organization experiences a death-blow in the form of a data loss disaster. Yet, there’s some debate as to whether an on-site data backup solution can be as effective as the cloud. The verdict: both are essential.

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From Magnetic Tape to the Cloud: A Brief Look at the Past 60 Years of Data Storage

b2ap3_thumbnail_history_of_data_storage_400.jpgData storage is such an important part of today’s business environment, but when was the last time you took the time to consider technologies that came before? Technology that exists today couldn’t possibly have existed 50, or even 20 years ago. How have the leaps and bounds made in the tech industry affected the status of data storage, and what does this trend mean for small and medium-sized businesses?

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New Technology Delivers Staggering Data Retention Options

b2ap3_thumbnail_light_data_storage_400.jpgAs more data systems develop the need for structured data storage, the development of fast and secure solutions have become essential to the viability of storing and retrieving data. Scientists have been looking at the field of optoelectronics to develop constructs where an enormous amount of data can be stored for exorbitant amounts of time.

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The Connection, Inc. Celebrates 32 Years as a Trusted Technology Provider!   Since our founding in 1992, technology and the way we operate and do business has changed a lot. Companies that have adapted and aligned themselves with ...

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