HP Developing 'The Machine' Designed to Bring 100TB Smartphone Storage and Much More

[dgstorm]

[video=youtube;DJj5h2jAikA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJj5h2jAikA[/video]​

Although it sounds like something out of a cheap sci-fi doomsday novel or B movie, HP is developing a "moonshot project" they call The Machine. This project aims to revolutionize the way we connect, use and store data by using advanced technologies far beyond what we have today. It does this using vastly more efficient servers, photonic network connectivity and memristors. The most challenging thing about this project is that HP is basically pioneering a completely new computer architecture.

Building servers is something HP has mastered for years, so it's not too hard to believe they can pull off this part. The second part aims to replace existing copper based infrastructure in data centers with photonics based lasers. The final cog in the piece is probably the most intriguing. HP has developed advanced breakthroughs in a technology called a memristor. This basically combines transistors with memory allowing components which can store data permanently just like regular flash storage, yet make it accessible very quickly, like RAM memory.

This last technology will lead to storage in smartphones which can provide up to 100 terabytes of space, yet access that data faster than ever before. This memristor technology is the core of The Machine's new platform. Ultimately, The Machine could replace "a data center’s worth of equipment with a single refrigerator-size machine."

What's really surprising is that this new tech is probably not that far off. In fact, HP predicts the bulk of The Machine will be commercially viable by somewhere between 2017 and 2020.

Source: Businessweek

 

[Narsil]

Okay.
Fine.
I give up.

If Google gives me a Nexus phone with 100TB of internal memory, I won't gripe about the lack of an SD Card.

See? I'm not totally unreasonable.

 

[Jeffrey]

100T, I'm have trouble filling 64G

 

[johnomaz]

So their cloud solution where files are stored on your own devices but indexed on servers so they can be accessed from anywhere, that kind of defeats the purpose of cloud computing. I don't want to have to lave my workstation on to access the data. I can do that now as it is. Its similar to what bittorrent does. I hope I'm just not smart enough to fully understand what they are pioneering. I also use cloud services because their servers use redundant backup solutions so if they have a drive failure with my data on it, its not gone or even has any downtime. My computer doesn't have that because it costs $$$. Thats why I pay for cloud storage.

 

[dgstorm]

I don't think the intent is necessarily to provide smartphones with 100TB storage capacity. It's simply that the memristor tech will facilitate that. HP's plan will be to use it for their servers, but you can bet that other companies will build computing devices which will use the technology.