The 5D storage crystal technology developed by the UK-based startup SPhotonix is steadily progressing towards practical use. The company has outlined plans to test glass-based cold storage systems in data centers over the next two years. This innovative approach leverages femtosecond laser pulses to etch minuscule voxels (three-dimensional pixels) into fused silica glass for data storage. It achieves five-dimensional data encoding by utilizing the voxels' 'birefringence' property along with their x, y, and z coordinates. The quartz glass used as the storage medium shares a similar material composition with optical fibers, conferring it with exceptional durability. A single 5-inch glass disk is capable of storing up to 360 terabytes (TB) of data. According to SPhotonix's estimates, when stored at 190 degrees Celsius, the data encoded in the voxels within the glass can endure for an astonishing 13.8 billion years. Presently, the technology boasts a write speed of 4 megabytes per second (MB/s) and a read speed of 30 MB/s. However, there are ambitious plans to enhance these speeds to 500 MB/s within the next three to four years. The initial write device is projected to cost around $30,000, while the read device is expected to retail for approximately $6,000. Furthermore, the company intends to introduce a field-deployable reader in about 18 months.