New data tech aims to reduce power consumption of computer storage

By Warren Miller, contributing writer

Memory can be a tricky thing — sometimes you forget where you put keys just 10 minutes earlier, yet you can remember exactly how many home runs the left fielder for the Yankees hit in 1897. Data storage can be similarly tricky — there are benefits and drawbacks to the different forms of computer memory that you’ve become familiar with. Now, a team of researchers from Shanghai’s Fudan University believe that they have created a more efficient type of data storage that could revolutionize the way that computers (and their human overlords) secure and transfer information.

Before now, data storage using semiconductors came in two basic forms. The first, volatile storage, is what your computer’s internal memory uses to keep track of what you’re doing as you do it. (As I type this, the volatile storage in my computer is storing what I write.) Volatile storage boasts almost instantaneous data-writing speeds, but if I were to turn off my computer at this moment without saving, what I’ve written would be lost. The second form, non-volatile storage, is what flash drives use to store data that you save to them. Data saved to a flash drive has a shelf life of upwards of 10 years, but it takes much longer to write data onto them than it does to write to volatile storage.

Image source: Pixabay.

The Fudan team believes that their innovation is essentially the best of both worlds, bridging the gap between volatile and non-volatile memory structures. Its data-writing rates are approximately 10,000 times faster than typical flash memory devices while still maintaining their long-term stability. The length of time that the data is stored can also be specified, meaning that data can be stored from anywhere from four hours to four years, depending on the needs of the application. This is a particularly relevant feature in the realm of data security because users may want certain information to be accessible for a finite period of time. In particular, keys used to encrypt or decrypt data could be stored in memory only available for a short time. This would make it impossible for keys to be “stolen” after they have been used for the allotted time.

“People in the future may receive a disc in which the data is only effective for, say, three days, which elevates the security of the information,” Zhang Wei, executive director of the School of Microelectronics at Fudan University and a leading researcher, told China Daily. “People can also have tailor-made flash drives with the new storage technology. The data stored inside will be regularly emptied at an appointed time.”

In the post-Facebook/Cambridge Analytica world, data security is sure to be more imperative than ever before. The idea of flash memory drives that can be programmed to clear data at predetermined intervals could go a long way toward easing concerns of cybersecurity wonks going forward. Now if only we could get our own memories to cooperate along similar lines.