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IBM Prepares 100-Terabyte Tape Drives

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the your-base-has-been-digitized dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "It's a well-known fact that we're living in an era of data explosion, and that it's not about to stop. So it's not really surprising that IBM researchers are eyeing 100T-byte tape drive. Yes, you read correctly. They want to increase the capacity storage of their largest units by 250 times, from 400 GB to 100 TB. In order to achieve this goal, they're borrowing "nanopatterning" techniques derived from the microprocessor division. Today, the size of a tape track is about 10 microns. They want to reduce it to 0.5 micron -- or 500 nanometers -- in about five years. IBM doesn't really say when a 100-Terabyte tape drive will be available. But more importantly, the company doesn't say a word about future data transfer rates, which today reach a 80 MB/s. Read this overview for more comments about this problem of data transfer rates."

6 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. PR0N! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    That's _alot_ of pr0n.

  2. tape drives? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    What do they have in mind, they want to build the world's largest Turing machine?

  3. Re:Gimme, Gimme, Gimme.... by Hognoxious · · Score: 2, Funny
    Pshaaah... I say. Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 100GB tape in my pocket.
    And I thought you were just pleased to see me...
    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  4. Thank God! by abrager · · Score: 2, Funny

    The next version of Microsoft Office fits on two of these.

  5. "Have you lost your mind??" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    "Nope, it's somewhere here on tape..."

  6. Re:I bet it's worth the money... by Doppler00 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Yes, but at least 30% of that audio would be of you snoring. Might want to ommit those parts.