Note: Unfortunately the research paper linked in the article is a dead/broken/wrong link. Perhaps the author will update it later.
From the limited coverage, it doesn’t sound like there’s an actual optical drive that utilizes this yet and that it’s just theoretical based on the properties of the material the researchers developed.
I’m not holding my breath, but I would absolutely love to be able to back up my storage system to a single optical disc (even if tens of TBs go unused).
If they could make a R/W version of that, holy crap.
If those turn up at any sort of reasonable cost, it would simplify my home backups so much. I only have about 14TB currently on my NAS (including workstation backups) but even at that size backups are a problem. The irreplaceable stuff (about 3TB worth) is backed up in the cloud. My ripped DVDs/BRDs would all have to be reripped, other stuff I’d just have to find again or live without. I’ve been looking at the advancements being made in tape drives, but those are all priced for business.
Wouldn’t Backblaze be a solution for you?
Possibly. I honestly haven’t looked at the ecosystem in a few years. Back then BB’s plan structures would have forced me into their business solution and bill over $800/yr - more than 8x my current backup costs.
You could also go for cold storage, scaleway glacier costs €28/m. You could also consider a BX31 (10TB) Hetzner storage box for €25/m if you don’t need everything to be backed but do want quick retrieval times.
Since I work with AWS daily, Glacier was my first attempt. Glacier + Synology hyperbackup proved too fragile for my needs. I ended up needing to rebuild my archive about once a year or so. Then I had to choose between an expensive and time consuming cleanup, or paying for multiple copies.