The future of tape storage

The story of tape goes back to the very first computers, the original mainframes from the 50s and 60s. These early computers made use of magnetic tape drives with a capacity of 1-2 MB and transferred data at less than 10 KB per second. Current LTO tape drives can store up to 6 TB (that’s approximately 1,500 movies or 1,200,000 songs) at speeds of 300 MB per second. Amid a flurry of new trends, technologies and buzzwords in the storage industry, this article revisits tape and its current role. What is tape and how does it work? Where does it… [Continue Reading]