Cerabyte Targets 100 Petabytes per Rack with 5,000-Year Ceramic Storage
Ultra-durable glass media aims to cut CO₂ emissions and outperform tape by 2030
German startup Cerabyte unveils ceramic-on-glass storage that lasts 5,000 years, with a roadmap toward 100 PB per rack and 2 GB/s throughput, backed by Western Digital and other investors.
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Munich, Germany – July 5, 2025 (Updated: September 11, 2025) — German startup Cerabyte has unveiled an ambitious roadmap for its revolutionary ceramic-based data storage technology, targeting systems that offer 100 petabytes (PB) of storage per rack, with transfer rates of 2 GB/s, by 2030. The company presented its plans at the A3 Tech Live conference in Munich, detailing innovative ceramic nanolayer-based storage that promises to preserve data for 5,000 years.
The company's pilot production system, scheduled for 2025/26, will deliver 1PB storage per rack for the pilot, but only pedestrian 100 MB/s data transfers with a 90-second time to first byte. By 2030, Cerabyte expects to achieve systems with 100-plus PB archival storage rack with 2 GBps bandwidth and sub-10-second time to first byte - representing a 100x capacity increase and 20x performance improvement over the initial system.
Cerabyte's technology demonstrates exceptional durability. During recent testing, the company boiled its media in salt water (100C, 212F), then grilled it in a pizza oven (250C, 480F), with data remaining 100% intact after this extreme process. The company also emphasizes sustainability, citing research indicating that replacing tape storage could reduce the carbon footprint of global data storage from 2 percent of global CO2 emissions to 1.25 percent.
The economic advantages are equally compelling. Cerabyte projects total cost of ownership will drop from around $7,000-$8,000 to $6-$8 per PB per month by 2030. The technology positions itself as a superior alternative to tape, offering $1 per TB against tape's $2 per TB, 1-2 GBps versus tape's 1 GBps and a 5,000-year data integrity versus tape's 7-15 years.
The startup has secured significant backing, having raised around $10 million in seed funding and received more than $4 million in grants from investors including Pure Storage, In-Q-Tel, the EIC Accelerator Fund, and Western Digital, whose strategic investment from Western Digital announced in May 2025 is expected to accelerate commercialization. Cerabyte is expanding its global presence with new offices in Santa Clara, California and Boulder, Colorado, supporting its mission to create data storage as durable as hieroglyphs for hyperscale and archival deployments.
About Cerabyte
Founded in 2022, Cerabyte is developing revolutionary ceramic-based storage systems designed for eternal data preservation. The company's technology targets archival applications across research, government, media, and enterprise sectors with its innovative ceramic-on-glass storage solution.
