Cassette Tapes are back ?????? No way...

From CNN

this isn't one of those rattling plastic tapes you used to compile your ultimate summer road-trip jams and, too often, were probably forced to rewind with a pencil.

Sony's record-breaking magnetic tape technology allows it to store 180 terabytes of data on a single cartridge. That's the same amount of storage as 1,184 iPod Classics, Apple's roomiest music player, which can hold about 40,000 songs. Using that number, Sony's new cassette could technically store about 47.3 million songs of its own.

so get this---The cartridge, which stores 148GB of data per inch of tape, has room for 3,700 Blu-ray discs full of your favorites. 180 terabytes is like 360 laptops like the one I own! Forget external HD's... all you need is one of these Cassette Tapes

Sony develops magnetic tape technology with the world's highest*1 areal recording density of 148 Gb/in2

- Able to record approximately 74 times (185TB)*2 more data than conventional magnetic tape media -

Link to Sony press release here

but they say they may only ever be used for database storage. To bad though, I'd want me one of these!

anyway, time will tell but it looks like the new refashioned Cassette Tapes are back!

I would rather see eight track tapes come back. They look more like hard drives. Cassette tapes never looked impressive. We still have a dozen 8 track tapes and a stereo to play them.

Dammit, its 2014! Why don't we have pure crystal computers with crystal shard harddrives now! I want my fortress of solitude already!!!

Boo technology! BOOO!!!


____
This is what Alienware computers should look like

a reply to: HardCorps

Wow..dwnld anything you want and never look back..until you need it of course. I want one..

Sony develops magnetic tape technology with the world's highest*1 areal recording density of 148 Gb/in2
- Able to record approximately 74 times (185TB)*2 more data than conventional magnetic tape media -

Uh, I'm drooling, hold on....damn, for anyone that grew up in the time of cassettes, these will be irresistable.

Not to mention that one could back up an entire software defined data center and take it home in one's pocket.

Go Sony!

Thanks OP!

a reply to: SaturnFX

that day is closer than you think


that image is one possibility in successfully building a working quantum computer.
if they can pull it off we'll be well on our way to being able to upload a human mind into a computer.
more like the Matrix rather than the fortress of solitude.
let me tell ya, that really scares the crap out of me
Qubit Array

originally posted by: HardCorps

but they say they may only ever be used for database storage. To bad though, I'd want me one of these!

Sure, if you don't mind sequential data access and glacial read/write speeds. Tapes have been (and still are) used for archiving for many decades, this isn't some fancy new technology.

There's an existing thread on this subject here: www.abovetopsecret.com...

a reply to: SaturnFX

...OR flying cars,anti gravity... I think they already exist, but not for us.

Cassette tapes never went anywhere in the UK.
Our police still mostly record on tape, with three produced, one master and copies for the prosectution and defence.
Each tape is signed and sealed by the defendant with a security sticker.
www.bbc.co.uk...

While some police services are piloting systems with digital recording, 90% of the two million interviews carried out in 2011 were recorded on to tape.

I was arrested a year or so ago and chuckled when I saw the tapes going into the recorder for my interview. When I asked why the 20th Century tech, the cops replied that they prefer it due to the difficulty in adding/deleting/editing the interview afterwards - especially with the signed sealed case and 'mechanical' analogue simplicity of it.

...I was released without charge, for the record lol

Being that this is tape, even if you COULD put all your songs and whatnot on one of them, good luck finding your favorite song by fast forwarding and rewinding in your life time.....these are built for large data storage in a data center. They have software that keeps a snapshot of where data is on the tapes to get to it if needed....still takes a while. So if you had to get the software to run this, as well as a device to play it, you would be talking likely in the few million dollar range.

originally posted by: SaturnFX
Dammit, its 2014! Why don't we have pure crystal computers with crystal shard harddrives now! I want my fortress of solitude already!!!

Boo technology! BOOO!!!


____
This is what Alienware computers should look like

Just stay away from horses...and dont try to make them jump over things if you must ride them. Good luck on the fortress.
I just read an article were Sony is suffering because no one is adopting blu-ray. Either digital download or DVD.

a reply to: HardCorps

I wonder how many of these it would take to hold America's Library of Congress.

originally posted by: Aleister
a reply to: HardCorps

I wonder how many of these it would take to hold America's Library of Congress.

You could fit the Library of Congress on one tape 5 times. There are 36 million books and each would be around 5MB from what I have seen.

originally posted by: cavtrooper7
a reply to: SaturnFX

...OR flying cars,anti gravity... I think they already exist, but not for us.

Well, flying cars..I would probably crash it, so not overly bothered for now. Anti-grav...I currently have no use for (outside of perhaps a poor mans pool..aka, float around in a room I guess).

But a uber crystal computer...now that would be sweet
(imagines a modded skyrim running on krypton-tech)

originally posted by: Aleister
a reply to: HardCorps

I wonder how many of these it would take to hold America's Library of Congress.

Now if you are talking about everything in the Library of Congres, from maps to recordings to movies and all, It should all fit on less than 20 of these tapes. My first figure was just for the books.

a reply to: Vasa Croe

Nope--- I just asked Mister Owl and he said 3.

Of course that's his answer to everything--- don't believe me
go on ask him yourself--- how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop ?

seriously, if you do a frequency analysis of all the individual e-book sizes across the entire corpus: you'll get somewhere between 1 to 5 MB per book. most on the small end of the scale.

He's right folks, one tape you could store the whole thing with room left over for your porn vids

I do not think having tens of millions of anything is necessarily a good thing...well maybe $$$,but that's it.

originally posted by: HardCorps
a reply to: Vasa Croe

Nope--- I just asked Mister Owl and he said 3.

Of course that's his answer to everything--- don't believe me
go on ask him yourself--- how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop ?

seriously, if you do a frequency analysis of all the individual e-book sizes across the entire corpus: you'll get somewhere between 1 to 5 MB per book. most on the small end of the scale.

He's right folks, one tape you could store the whole thing with room left over for your porn vids

Funny you should mention that...there is some guy that I guess is working with the Library of Congress quietly that has been categorizing porn for decades!
I dont have the link but do a google search. Just dont end up like Stan Marsh from South Park and "be attacked by ghosts...yeah...this is ectoplasm..."

originally posted by: HardCorps
...so get this---The cartridge, which stores 148GB of data per inch of tape, has room for 3,700 Blu-ray discs full of your favorites. 180 terabytes is like 360 laptops like the one I own! Forget external HD's... all you need is one of these Cassette Tapes

What's useful about external hard drives (or blue ray disks, of flash drive memory sticks) is that all of the data can be accessed/retrieved easily. If all of your data was on a tape, try accessing a specific piece of data that may be somewhere on the tape spool that is wound halfway down the spool, under a bunch of other tape.

So, for data storage and archiving, it's great. For quickly and easily pulling up a document, picture, song, or video when you want it -- no.

originally posted by: HardCorps

He's right folks, one tape you could store the whole thing with room left over for your porn vids

Speak for yourself.

I'll take two of those cassettes...might be back for another. Depends on if I want to keep the Brazilian Fart pron