- Ewigbyte combines optical read/write devices with automated processing for large-scale archiving.
- Data is stored on inert media designed to prevent environmental degradation.
- Modular architecture allows deployments to scale from petabytes to exabytes.
European startup Ewigbyte has unveiled an exabyte-scale zero-power archival storage system, part of the same new category as Cerabyte's ceramic-based storage technology.
Every company is committed to long-term, energy-efficient data retention, targeting hyperscalers, governments and research institutions facing rapid archive growth.
Ewigbyte uses ultra-stable physical encoding that allows data to be stored for centuries without electricity, refrigeration, or periodic data migration.
Modular architecture and energy-saving design
The system is designed for cold storage applications where access latency is less important than durability, density and low operating costs.
The company says that by eliminating sleep and update cycles, the platform can reduce long-term archiving costs compared to tape and hard drive systems.
The startup built its architecture around modular storage devices that scale from petabytes to exabytes in a single deployment.
Specialized equipment records data onto an inert medium that is resistant to heat, radiation and environmental degradation.
Once written, data remains fixed and does not require active management until it is retrieved.
Ewigbyte combines optical writers and readers, robotic processing and automated storage with software that integrates with object storage platforms.
Initial media designs are rated at 10GB per tablet, with data written to both sides and local write and read speeds of around 500MB/s per head.
Thanks to parallel operation, each machine achieves approximately 4 GB/s, and the total throughput scales across multiple machines.
Planned facilities can support up to 100 machines simultaneously, supporting exabyte-scale deployments.
Ewigbyte positions its system as an alternative to both tape libraries and new solid-state archiving concepts.
While access speeds lag behind traditional enterprise storage, the company says most archive data sets require infrequent access and instead require exceptional reliability, density and minimal operational costs.
This focus makes the platform suitable for storing scientific records, cultural archives, satellite imagery and long-term storage of regulatory requirements.
Kerabyte pursues a similar zero-energy goal using laser-etched ceramic storage, reflecting growing interest in post-record archiving technologies.
Ewigbyte has not said whether its media composition or recording methods are the same as ceramic-based designs, limiting direct technical comparisons at this time.
Other efforts in this area include Microsoft Project Silica, which uses laser-encoded quartz glass to store data for decades.
Photonicsin comparison, the focus is on photonics-based multilayer optical media for scalable cold storage.
The broader challenge for all of these systems is scale of production, cost per terabyte, and ecosystem adoption.
Buyers of archival storage tend to tread carefully, and technologies that require storing data over several centuries often face long review cycles.
Certification, standardization, and search tools will likely determine which platforms gain adoption.
As data volumes continue to exceed active storage budgets, zero-power archival systems are moving from research concepts to early commercial deployment.
It remains to be seen whether Ewigbyte or Cerabyte will achieve widespread adoption first, but their parallel efforts point to a possible shift away from tape-dominated archival infrastructure.
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