China Achieves Mass Production Breakthrough with 360TB Glass Hard Drives
Researchers at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) have achieved small-scale mass production of glass-based hard drives, a breakthrough that could transform enterprise cold data storage. Each glass disc can store a staggering 360 terabytes of data across 400 stacked layers, using laser "carving" technology that writes data into the internal structure of the glass medium.
No cold flow would move mass to the lower side when being held vertically causing an imbalance. If you spin up a balanced disk it comes to rest at a random angular position or motor pole.
Randomizing the side of the disk that is down regularly and with relatively short intervals keeps the average displacement of mass due to cold flow near zero.
Of course rotating would also work but that would require a motor with fine positional control when reliable systems thrive on simplicity.