this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2023
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[–] [email protected] 102 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (23 children)

Haven't hard drives been cheaper per storage amount than SSDs forever? The problem was always that they were slow. I think tape may still be cheaper per storage amount than hard drives, but the speed is abysmal.

Edit: yeah looks like tape is 3x to 4x cheaper than hard drives https://corodata.com/tape-backups-still-used-today

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'd love to see what could be done with current tape storage technology in standard compact cassette format.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

There's some space occupied by the servo tracks (which align the heads to the tap) in LTO, but if we ignore that...

Current-generation LTO9 has 1035m of 12.65mm wide tape, for 18TB of storage. That's approximately 13.1m², or just under 1.4TB/m².

A 90 minute audio cassette has around 90m of 6.4mm wide tape, or 0.576m². At the same density it could potentially hold 825GB.

DDS (which was data tape in a similar form factor) achieved 160GB in 2009, although there's a lot more tape in one of those cartridges (153m).

Honestly, you'd be better off using the LTO. Because they're single-reel cartridges (the 2nd is inside the drive), they can pack a lot more tape into the same volume.

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