Tape Crazy

Funny to think of all the means we have to back up data.  How many flash drives, hard drives, cloud folders, CD's, DVD, or heck, just old computers you may have lying around just because there is"important" information on them.  I'm guessing the answer is a lot.  As technology moves forward so do the tools we use to store our data, and the money spent to invent technologies is huge.  So why would a company like Sony, advance an old form of technology like video tape.

Yup, tape.

Believe it or not, physical copies of things are still the preferred way to save old data.  When I worked at WHYY television studio, every show or segment was backed up on Beta (essentially a higher quality version of a VHS tape).  Why you ask?  Well tape, when handled correctly will essentially last forever.  Think of how many libraries have 16mm, 35mm, or microfiche in a storage or archival room somewhere.  It's because they will never go away (unless they catch fire) and can always be used as a reference.  

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So Sony comes along and releases an updated version of its magnetic tape data cartridge, that holds....are you ready for this....keep in mind this is a physical piece of magnetic tape....185 Terabytes!!!  More specifically 148GB per square inch.  That's insane.  

Tape works by coating plastic film with magnetic coating, where bytes of data are stored in the coating.  There were limitations with how many bytes could be stored, which is why you'll typically hear the term 8 or 16 bit recording, most commonly associated with audio files, or music.  Now, Sony has engineers a super high density crystal polymer that can be layered within the same amount of physical space, to store bytes in.  Basically, instead of one row of 8, you have multiple rows of millions.  Pretty cool stuff