Microsoft says its glass-based storage project now works with 'the same material found in kitchen cookware and oven doors' and can hold data for 10,000 years

Parts of Microsoft's Project Silica, an experimental glass-based data storage solution.

Long-term data storage is a tricky one. As I look at my personal hard drives, full of photos, screenshots, and ancient drafts of teenage poetry I hope never see the light of day, I can't help but wonder how long I really have until I encounter the dread spectre of disk failure.

SSDs may sound like the obvious solution, but have you seen SSD prices lately? Besides, even storage giant SanDisk says, "most SSDs will last anywhere from 5 to 10 years." That's hardly archival-quality. However, a fresh study from Microsoft has found an unlikely medium that can potentially store high-density data for up to 10,000 years—namely, laser-etched glass.