Project Silica: Towards Sustainable Cloud Archival Storage in Glass
Open accessAbstract
Sustainable and cost-effective long-term storage remains an unsolved problem. The most widely used storage technologies today are magnetic (hard disk drives and tape). They use media that degrades over time and has a limited lifetime, which leads to inefficient, wasteful, and costly solutions for long-lived data. This article presents Silica: the first cloud storage system for archival data underpinned by quartz glass, an extremely resilient media that allows data to be left in situ indefinitely. The hardware and software of Silica have been co-designed and co-optimized from the media up to the service level with sustainability as a primary objective. The design follows a cloud-first, data-driven methodology underpinned by principles derived from analyzing the archival workload of a large public cloud service. Silica can support a wide range of archival storage workloads and ushers in a new era of sustainable, cost-effective storage.
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Data must be regularly migrated to new media, a process costly in time, equipment and energy.
“As a result, data must be regularly migrated to new media18, a process that is costly in time, equipment and energy.”
From Laser writing in glass for dense, fast and efficient archival data storage (2026) · cites this paper as [18]
A storage system using this technology guarantees high data durability (data are not lost due to failures).
“Our technology guarantees data integrity (stored data are retrieved without errors), and a storage system using this technology18 guarantees high data durability (data are not lost due to failures).”
From Laser writing in glass for dense, fast and efficient archival data storage (2026) · cites this paper as [18]
Data durability is enabled by cross-track and cross-platter data redundancy.
“whereas data durability is enabled by cross-track and cross-platter data redundancy18.”
From Laser writing in glass for dense, fast and efficient archival data storage (2026) · cites this paper as [18]
The absolute read throughput was not considered in this paper as it is not a significant cost component of the system.
“The absolute read throughput was not considered in this paper as it is not a significant cost component of the system18.”
From Laser writing in glass for dense, fast and efficient archival data storage (2026) · cites this paper as [18]
An erasure code that spreads k sectors of data over n sectors allows the user data to be reproduced as long as any k of the n sectors are perfectly decoded.
“We choose LDPC codes37 for error correction within sectors and an erasure code that spreads k sectors of data over n sectors so that as long as any k of the n sectors are perfectly decoded, the user data can be reproduced18.”
From Laser writing in glass for dense, fast and efficient archival data storage (2026) · cites this paper as [18]
A full archival system in the cloud would require consideration of many other computer system design aspects.
“A full archival system in the cloud would require consideration of many other computer system design aspects18.”
From Laser writing in glass for dense, fast and efficient archival data storage (2026) · cites this paper as [18]
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- Authors
- Anderson, P., Aranas, E., Assaf, Y., Behrendt, R., Black, R., Caballero, M., Cameron, P., Canakci, B., Chatzieleftheriou, A., Clarke, R., Clegg, J., Cletheroe, D., Cooper, B., De Carvalho, T., Deegan, T., Donnelly, A., Drevinskas, R., Gaunt, A., Gkantsidis, C., Gomez Diaz, A., Haller, I., Hong, F., Ilieva, T., Joshi, S., Joyce, R., Kunkel, W., Lara, D., Legtchenko, S., Liu, F., Magalhaes, B., Marzoev, A., McNett, M., Mohan, J., Myrah, M., Nguyen, T., Nowozin, S., Ogus, A., Overweg, H., Rowstron, A., Sah, M., Sakakura, M., Scholtz, P., Schreiner, N., Sella, O., Smith, A., Stefanovici, I., Sweeney, D., Thomsen, B., Verkes, G., Wainman, P., Westcott, J., Weston, L., Whittaker, C., Wilke Berenguer, P., Williams, H., Winkler, T., & Winzeck, S.
- Affiliations
- Microsoft Research (United Kingdom) (GB)
- Microsoft, Redmond, United States
- Microsoft Research, Cambridge, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
- Microsoft (United States) (US)
- ORCID
- Anderson, Patrick
- Aranas, Erika
- Assaf, Youssef
- Behrendt, Raphael
- Black, Richard
- Caballero, Marco
- Cameron, Pashmina
- Canakci, Burcu
- Chatzieleftheriou, Andromachi
- Clarke, Rebekah
- Clegg, James
- Cletheroe, Daniel
- Cooper, Bridgette
- De Carvalho, Thales
- Deegan, Tim
- Donnelly, Austin
- Drevinskas, Rokas
- Gaunt, Alexander
- Gkantsidis, Christos
- Gomez Diaz, Ariel
- Haller, Istvan
- Hong, Freddie
- Ilieva, Teodora
- Joshi, Shashidhar
- Joyce, Russell
- Kunkel, William
- Lara, David
- Legtchenko, Sergey
- Liu, Fanglin
- Magalhaes, Bruno
- Marzoev, Alana
- McNett, Marvin
- Mohan, Jayashree
- Myrah, Michael
- Nguyen, Truong
- Nowozin, Sebastian
- Ogus, Aaron
- Overweg, Hiske
- Rowstron, Antony
- Sah, Maneesh
- Sakakura, Masaaki
- Scholtz, Peter
- Schreiner, Nina
- Sella, Omer
- Smith, Adam
- Stefanovici, Ioan
- Sweeney, David
- Thomsen, Benn
- Verkes, Govert
- Wainman, Phil
- Westcott, Jonathan
- Weston, Luke
- Whittaker, Charles
- Wilke Berenguer, Pablo
- Williams, Hugh
- Winkler, Thomas
- Winzeck, Stefan
- Venue
- ACM Transactions on Storage
- Published
- 2025-02-08
- Volume
- 21
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 1-31
- ISSN
- 1553-3077 (ISSN-L)
- 1553-3093
- OpenAlex
- W4405918781
- Cited by
- 13
- References
- 36
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 5
- FWCI
- 2.16
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- ACM Transactions on Storage (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Networks and Communications › Advanced Data Storage Technologies
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Cloud Computing and Resource Management
- Physical Sciences › Materials Science › Materials Chemistry › Phase-change materials and chalcogenides
- Keywords
- archival storage, fused silica, long-term data preservation, cloud storage, cost-effective storage
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