Sony Crams 3,700 Blu-Rays' Worth of Storage in a Single Cassette Tape

[John Connor]

http://gizmodo.com/sony-crams-3-700...source=gizmodo_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

Sony's technique, which will be discussed at today's International Magnetics Conference in Dresden, uses a vacuum-forming technique called sputter deposition to create a layer of magnetic crystals by shooting argon ions at a polymer film substrate. The crystals, measuring just 7.7 nanometers on average, pack together more densely than any other previous method.
The result: three Blu-Rays' worth of data can fit on one square inch of Sony's new wonder-tape.

DAMN!

 

[disappoint]

Meh I'd still rather have 3 Blu-Rays. I'd still get to the data I want faster on average considering how long it takes to scroll through miles of tape.

 

[mmntech]

Segate had a 1 terabit per square inch drive in the works a couple years ago. Or 128 gigabytes.

I guess tape is still a much cheaper solution for backing up large databases. Though it's useless for anything else. However, the technology will probably port over to hard drives.

So if a 3.5'' hard drive has roughly 28sq-in (30, minus the spindle hole) surface area, you could store roughly 4TB per platter using similar technology, or 8TB if you write to both sides.

 

[Kadarin]

If they were ever to market something like this, they'll so encumber it with shitty DRM that it'll be unusable.

 

[BeeBoop]

4k is around the corner

 

[HeXen]

I heard for years that crystals would eventually replace optical. Making this practical for consumers though may take some time.

 

[mmntech]

If they were ever to market something like this, they'll so encumber it with shitty DRM that it'll be unusable.

Or install it in only Sony branded computers, and charge double what competitors do for the same storage. Vita, I'm looking at you.

 

[IronWing]

I dumped the last of my XLIIS tapes.

 

[mikegg]

What are read/write speeds for tape?

 

[bononos]

Meh I'd still rather have 3 Blu-Rays. I'd still get to the data I want faster on average considering how long it takes to scroll through miles of tape.

I guess you didn't read the OP, its 3 BR in 1 square inch, 3700 BR in 1 cassette.

 

[Schfifty Five]

Meh I'd still rather have 3 Blu-Rays. I'd still get to the data I want faster on average considering how long it takes to scroll through miles of tape.

Not sure if you meant 3 or 3,700.

 

[NoTine42]

What are read/write speeds for tape?

I think my TI99/4a's tape drive wrote at 300 baud, so this new tape is probably 1200 Baud.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Meh I'd still rather have 3 Blu-Rays. I'd still get to the data I want faster on average considering how long it takes to scroll through miles of tape.

three Blu-Rays' worth of data can fit on one square inch of Sony's new wonder-tape.

Miles of tape not found.

 

[Sonikku]

Crystals really are a better medium for storing large great works compared to discs.

I saw it on Sliders.

 

[MongGrel]

Interesting, at any rate.

 

[BUTCH1]

They must have come up with a much more robust blank tape, those of us oldies remember loading software into Commodore 64's and praying it would actually load, even a tiny crinkle in the tape meant your program didn't load and you wasted 15 minutes waiting for it to do so.

 

[NoTine42]

They must have come up with a much more robust blank tape, those of us oldies remember loading software into Commodore 64's and praying it would actually load, even a tiny crinkle in the tape meant your program didn't load and you wasted 15 minutes waiting for it to do so.

It was still better than spending all weekend typing in new game code from a magazine, only to loose it with an accidental power off.

 

[exdeath]

No no no no. We are supposed to be moving AWAY from this archaic mechanical shit.

I'll be impressed when we have 50 GB/sec + nanosecond random access times in non volatile electronic solid state storage that is fast enough to be used as RAM, retains data without power, and doesn't wear out in a reasonable amount of time eg before it's obsolete and replaced.

 

[mrjminer]

Sucks.

Now I'll have to fast forward through 85,000 songs to get to the one I want

 

[disappoint]

Damn, I must have blacked out from blu-rayge.

 

[Veliko]

These are backup tapes, so overall capacity is far more important than seek times.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Miles of tape not found.

So the tape only is 1 inch long? That makes it pretty useless, don't you think?

The problem with tape is that, if you want to read a file at the start of the tape and one at the end of it, you have to scroll through the whole tape. Go too fast and the tape breaks.

Edit: That's why tapes are still used for backup purposes, and not anymore for storage of files that have to be accessed regularly. Capacity is indeed more important than seek times for backups.

 

[tommo123]

isn't it only 300GB with 1TB possibly in future? didn't sony say blu ray would be higher capacities as well?

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

isn't it only 300GB with 1TB possibly in future? didn't sony say blu ray would be higher capacities as well?

There is no backup system yet that uses this new technique, but with it tapes should be able to hold 185TB, as described in the article linked in the OP's article:
http://www.extremetech.com/computin...s-3700-times-more-storage-than-a-blu-ray-disc

Blu ray has the slight disadvantage of either needing a 3700 disc rotation system (and storage for that number of discs) to burn that amount of data, or a few people sitting next to the system to swap all the discs manually

 

[tommo123]

i mean the version they have now is only 300GB