Sony develops a cassette tape with 185TB storage space

No, Sony isn’t feeling nostalgic for still creating a cassette tape. Although this device is considered a thing of the past, it carries a whopping 185 terabytes (or 189,440GB) of space for storage purposes alone – bigger than any modern CD, DVD, or Blu-ray discs that you can see today.

The reason that the Japanese company made a cassette tape with this much capacity isn’t for making a mixtape that would last decades to play. No, it’s mainly for archival purposes since magnetic tape storage are high density tapes that are cheaper, more power efficient, and more reliable than storage that are disc-based.

This cassette is equipped with 148GB of writable space per square inch. Comparing it with the normal cassettes used for storage today which only has 29.5GB per square inch, it is definitely a far cry from Sony’s latest innovation.

The company mentions that it would like to extend this technology to the public, but it’s still undisclosed when or if it will really push through. This brings us to a question: Does an ordinary consumer (like you, for example) need 185TB of storage?

{Source}

Kevin Bruce Francisco

Kevin Bruce Francisco is the Senior Editor and Video Producer for YugaTech. He's a Digital Filmmaking graduate who's always either daydreaming of traveling or actually going places on his bike. Follow him on Twitter for more tech updates @kevincofrancis.

http://www.yugatech.com

20 Comments

dags says:

11 years ago

Looks like a lot of people here don’t know that this tape storage isn’t ideal for daily use. Tape storage is commonly used for archiving data and not as a storage device that can be used for daily activities.

A lot of data companies still use tape storage because they’re much cheaper and more reliable for archival and long-term storage than your typical clacking mechanical hard drive.

Source: I do work as a System Administrator in a data mining company and we do tape backups.
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minos says:

11 years ago

True that, we’re using PowerVault Tape Drive Storage, it’s not meant for Consumer-oriented data backup and archiving…

ballpen says:

11 years ago

This thing will melt my ballpen.
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Needs Extra Space says:

11 years ago

DPWH
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Needs Extra Space. says:

11 years ago

Yes person like me having number or project definitely needs it. I already have 16 external drives @ 1TB each contains Structural Plans, ACAD layout and other paper documents usually DPHW required. I have my own 3TB WD Cloud for fast, easy and convenient use without paying such amount to Smart network. With 3TB WD Cloud I can sync all my devices from work to home.
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Mr A says:

11 years ago

By public I hope it doesn’t mean enterprise public. It wouldn’t hurt for the average consumer to have an archival option such as this.
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Kenneth says:

11 years ago

Does it mean it needs to be rewinded as well?
:)
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Hen-Sheen says:

11 years ago

I’m no stranger to this tech. In fact, this would be ideal if I have a Commodore 64 in my possession. And if that tape was Laserbeak, I would stop whatever I’m doing, and runaway like there’s no tomorrow!
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Justin says:

11 years ago

… spoken like a true nerd! :)

aze says:

11 years ago

very good for archiving old database files.
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TC says:

11 years ago

if you can handle the sequential read access times then why not.
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witchcraft says:

11 years ago

Sequential would theoretically be fine. It’s random access times that are gonna be piss-poor. If ever they make the drive motors spin faster to make up for it, then they might also tear the tape to pieces.

dude like Wo says:

11 years ago

im sure that most of the people this day wants a device with an almost unlimited storage capacity, tho the problem here is how to process, if that thing process few Gbs of data for several hours, then it is a no.
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someone says:

11 years ago

I probably would have filled 10TB of that tape by now if it came out 4 years ago.
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doood says:

11 years ago

working in a creatives company dealing with large files.. i need this!
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Fleeb says:

11 years ago

I am pretty sure that the consumer version of this product will not be offered with a 185 TB capacity.
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rafer says:

11 years ago

it depends, how much porn does a man really need?
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archie says:

11 years ago

Photographers will be the first customer if this will be developed and become mainstream.
wew says:

11 years ago

fuck
vhong says:

11 years ago

a just question, answerable by “more”….

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