162: GreyBeards talk cold storage with Steffen Hellmold, Dir. Cerabyte Inc.

Steffen Hellmold, Director, Cerabyte Inc. is extremely knowledgeable about the storage device business. He has worked for WDC in storage technology and possesses an in-depth understanding of tape and disk storage technology trends.

Cerabyte, a German startup, is developing cold storage. Steffen likened Cerabyte storage to ceramic punch cards that dominated IT and pre-IT over much of the last century. Once cards were punched, they created near-WORM storage that could be obliterated or shredded but was very hard to modify. Listen to the podcast to learn more.

Cerabyte uses a unique combination of semiconductor (lithographic) technology, ceramic coated glass, LTO tape (form factor) cartridge and LTO automation in their solution. So, for the most part, their critical technologies all come from somewhere else.

Their main technology uses a laser-lithographic process to imprint onto a sheet (ceramic coated glass) a data page (block?). There are multiple sheets in each cartridge.

Their intent is to offer a robotic system (based on LTO technology) to retrieve and replace their multi-sheet cartridges and mount them in their read-write drive.

As mentioned above, the write operation is akin to a lithographic data encoded mask that is laser imprinted on the glass. Once written, the data cannot be erased. But it can be obliterated, by something akin to writing all ones or it can be shredded and recycled as glass.

The read operation uses a microscope and camera to take scans of the sheet’s imprint and convert that into data.

Cerabyte’s solution is cold or ultra-cold (frozen) storage. If LTO robotics are any indication, a Cerabyte cartridge with multiple sheets can be presented to a read-write drive in a matter of seconds. However, extracting the appropriate sheet in a cartridge, and mounting it in a read-write drive will take more time. But this may be similar in time to an LTO tape leader being threaded through a tape drive, again a matter of seconds

Steffen didn’t supply any specifications on how much data could be stored per sheet other than to say it’s on the order of many GB. He did say that both sides of a Cerabyte sheet could be recording surfaces.

With their current prototype, an LTO form factor cartridge holds less than 5 sheets of media but they are hoping that they can get this to a 100 or more. in time.

We talked about the history of disk and tape storage technology. Steffen is convinced (as are many in the industry) that disk-tape capacity increases have slowed over time and that this is unlikely to change. I happen to believe that storage density increases tend to happen in spurts, as new technology is adopted and then trails off as that technology is built up. We agreed to disagree on this point.

Steffen predicted that Cerabyte will be able to cross over disk cost/capacity this decade and LTO cost/capacity sometime in the next decade.

We discussed the market for cold and frozen storage. Steffen mentioned that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has tasked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to conduct a rapid expert consultation on large-scale cold storage archives. And that most hyperscalers have use for cold and frozen storage in their environments and some even sell this (Glacier storage) to their customers.

The Library of Congress and similar entities in other nations are also interested in digital preservation that cold and frozen technology could provide. He also thinks that medical is a prime market that is required to retain information for the life of a patient. IBM, Cerabyte, and Fujifilm co-sponsored a report on sustainable digital preservation.

And of course, the media libraries for some entertainment companies represent a significant asset that if on tape has to be re-hosted every 5 years or so. Steffen and much of the industry are convinced that a sizeable market for cold and frozen storage exists.

I mentioned that long archives suffer from data format drift (data formats are no longer supported). Steffen mentioned there’s also software version drift (software that processed that data is no longer available/runnable on current OSs). And of course the current problem with tape is media drift (LTO media formats can be read only 2 versions back).

Steffen seemed to think format and software drift are industry-wide problems and they are being worked on. Cerabyte seems to have a great solution for media drift. As it can be read with a microscope. And the (ceramic glass) media has a predicted life of 100 years or more.

I mentioned the “new technology R&D” problem. Historically, as new storage technology has emerged, they have always end up being left behind (in capacity), because disk-tape-NAND R&D ($Bs each) over spends them. Steffen said it’s certainly NOT B$ of R&D for tape and disk.

Steffen countered by saying that all storage technology R&D spending pales in comparison to semiconductor R&D spending focused on reducing feature size. And as Cerabyte uses semiconductor technologies to write data, sheet capacity is directly a function of semiconductor technology. So, Cerabyte’s R&D technology budget should not be a problem. And in fact they have been able to develop their prototype, with just $7M in funding.

Steffen mentioned there is an upcoming Storage Technology Showcase conference in early March where Cerabyte will be at.

Steffen Hellmold, Director, Cerabyte Inc.

Steffen has more than 25 years of industry experience in product, technology, business & corporate development as well as strategy roles in semiconductor, memory, data storage and life sciences.

He served as Senior Vice President, Business Development, Data Storage at Twist Bioscience and held executive management positions at Western Digital, Everspin, SandForce, Seagate Technology, Lexar Media/Micron, Samsung Semiconductor, SMART Modular and Fujitsu.

He has been deeply engaged in various industry trade associations and standards organizations including co-founding the DNA Data Storage Alliance in 2020 as well as the USB Flash Drive Alliance, serving as their president from 2003 to 2007.

He holds an economic electrical engineering degree (EEE) from the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany.