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IBM and Sony Cram Up To 330 Terabytes Into Tiny Tape Cartridge (arstechnica.co.uk)

Posted by msmash on from the breakthrough dept.

IBM and Sony have developed a new magnetic tape system capable of storing 201 gigabits of data per square inch, for a max theoretical capacity of 330 terabytes in a single palm-sized cartridge. From a report: To achieve such a dramatic increase in areal density, Sony and IBM tackled different parts of the problem: Sony developed a new type of tape that has a higher density of magnetic recording sites, and IBM Research worked on new heads and signal processing tech to actually read and extract data from those nanometre-long patches of magnetism. Sony's new tape is underpinned by two novel technologies: an improved built-in lubricant layer, which keeps it running smoothly through the machine, and a new type of magnetic layer. Usually, a tape's magnetic layer is applied in liquid form, kind of like paint -- which is one of the reasons that magnetic tape is so cheap and easy to produce in huge quantities. In this case, Sony has instead used sputter deposition, a mature technique that has been used by the semiconductor and hard drive industries for decades to lay down thin films.

4 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. Can we get something for the consumers? by ctilsie242 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Can we get a consumer-level tape drive, something that works with USB 3.x, costs around $1000, with media costing $10-25 a cartridge, with an actual archival life, and some basic features like AES-256 encryption and compression in hardware? Having WORM media would be nice as well.

    This would solve a ton of storage/backup issues. A lot of people don't have the network connection to make cloud backups (much less complete disaster recoveries) feasible. People may not trust the cloud. Regulations may prohibit use of a remote backup provider. Or, someone just likes having the peace of mind of physical control of their data on media which might last past the end of this decade.

    There are tons of high capacity optical offerings available (Sony has some)... but other than specialty markets, they are not worth it. What would be nice would be a tape or even an optical drive for backups.

    Optical wouldn't be bad either. 400 CD jukeboxes are a solved problem, so having a BD-like format with 2-3 terabytes per disk would solve a lot of backup problems, especially with WORM capability to fend off ransomware.

    1. Re:Can we get something for the consumers? by Big+Boss · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The only real option for most normal people is to just build a backup server with another array to hold the backups. Even ignoring media archives, personal data with photos, videos, etc. can easily approach 1TB. I just upgraded my main server, and used the old one with some of the old 2TB drives in 3-way mirrors as the backups. I'll likely move it offsite now that it's synced up.

      An affordable tape system would be great, but I have yet to find one that has a reasonable cost with better reliability than my HDD arrays, even though they require a little more maintenance. Disk will always be faster for random I/O, but tape would be great for a lot of stuff if the cost were somewhat reasonable.

      And $1000 won't do it. People won't buy it. A few people on /. might, but your average person? No way in hell. Not with 4TB HDDs under $100. $200 drives with $20 tapes might work, but they would need to be in the TB range, native. I don't see that happening, though I'd love to be wrong.

  2. Falling for the 'backup tape' meme by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Back in the '90's and early 2000's I fell for the 'backup tape' meme three times. Every single time it ended the same way: Buy backup tapes. Put important stuff on them. Put them away. Some time later, you need something off the tape. Whoops, tape drive isn't working right anymore, not even with a new blank tape! Get a new tape drive. Whoops! Not compatible with your old tapes. Or, Whoops! It just won't read your old tapes, even though it's supposedly compatible! Throw out ALL THE TAPES because they're now useless junk and START OVER FROM SCRATCH. Repeat this THREE TIMES.

    Hundreds of dollars spent, each iteration.
    Never again.

  3. Most likely vaporware by u19925 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Before you get excited about this announcement, note that IBM and Sony has a history of announcing tape drive vaporware. Here is from wiki:

    "In 2011, Fujifilm and IBM announced that they had been able to record 29.5 billion bits per square inch with magnetic tape media developed using the BaFe particles and nanotechnologies, allowing drives with true (uncompressed) tape capacity of 35 TB.[18][19] The technology was not expected to be commercially available for at least a decade.

    In 2014, Sony and IBM announced that they had been able to record 148 gigabits per square inch with magnetic tape media developed using a new vacuum thin-film forming technology able to form extremely fine crystal particles, allowing true tape capacity of 185 TB.[20][21]"

    Even their 2011 announcement has not been brought to market yet.