As we have seen in recent months, the issue of storing data on a physical device is something that worries many of the largest companies in the world. To this day, it seems that human beings are capable of creating much more data than they can store, something that many experts seek to solve, including those they have on their payroll IBM, company that today has several groups of researchers and engineers working on different methods to store information.
A few days ago it was precisely IBM that amazed us with the idea of being able to store nothing less than 330 terabytes of uncompressed data making use of a very special type of magnetic tape with which they have managed to achieve a 201 gigabits per square inch data density based on own data provided by IBM. Before going into much more detail on this topic, just tell you that we are talking about a density that is about 20 times higher than what we had achieved with the magnetic tapes used for storage in a traditional way by the industry.
A technology with more than 60 years that can be more than interesting today
We are talking about a technology that used for more than 60 years in the industry, which has served as the basis for many and different types of sectors such as audiovisual making, on a personal level, we could, from our earliest childhood, record and listen to our favorite music or family moments again and again thanks to all those video cameras. and cassettes that we used to have at home.
Curiously, and despite the fact that this technology Today it may seem obsolete, The truth is that at the business level this type of storage systems, at the time, cost their owners a lot of money, hence, today, for example, there are many companies and storage centers in those that magnetic tapes continue to have a great presence thanks to their reduced cost per gigabyte.
Thanks to this evolution, this type of storage will be viable for the next decade
Personally, I have to confess that it has caught my attention that there are still work teams and researchers who, instead of working on technologies that do not yet exist and will still take a long time to become a reality, look back and rescue technologies like this.
On this occasion, advance that to make this technology a reality, IBM has requested the collaboration of Sony Storage Media Solution, a joint effort that, according to both companies, will allow magnetic tape storage to continue to be used for the next decade.
As it appears verbatim in the press release published by IBM where they introduce us to this new technology:
The potential for high-capacity solutions makes the cost per terabyte very attractive, making this technology very practical for cold storage in the cloud.
Storing data on magnetic tapes may be ideal for only certain types of businesses
Now, this type of technology also has its negative part since they are not viable for all types of companies due precisely to the way data are stored on this type of magnetic tape. An example of this we have in IBM's own statement where they ensure that this technology is ideal, above all, for store data that doesn't need to be constantly moved from one device to another or to data that must be stored for long periods without having to vary.
In this type of very specific cases is where this magnetic tape storage technology can be interesting enough for the industry, otherwise, the best thing is still to trust all those data storage systems with which we are used to practically working. daily.
Further information: The Verge