New Life for Magnetic Tape

[Sporkman]

...
At IBM's Zurich Research Laboratories in Switzerland, researchers have developed a new tape material and a novel tape-reading technology. In combination, they can store 29.5 billion bits per square inch, which translates to a cartridge capable of holding around 35 terabytes of data--more than 40 times the capacity of cartridges currently available, and several times more than a hard disk of comparable size...

http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/24406/?a=f

[audiomick]

Yes, impressive, but


they orientated the barium ferrite magnetic particles so that their magnetic fields protrude perpendicularly from the tape, instead of lengthways. This means that more bits can be crammed into a given area, and the magnetic fields are stronger. Furthermore, these particles allow thinner tape to be used, meaning12 percent more tape can be stored on a single spooled cartridge.

I can't help wondering about print-through.

[Kai69]

8 Track anyone:lolflag:

[lisati]

C120 cassette anyone? The only ones I ever had snarled when recording to them the first time.

[jwbrase]

The problem is that Hard drive storage is already cheap. The big limiter is access speed. Hard drives are already getting bigger more rapidly than they're getting faster, and tape is even slower than hard drive.