If you’re over 55 you probably remember buying music on cassette. Remember those old dual cassette recorders that let you copy your friend’s Beatles’ albums? Ah! Those were the days! Hang on — it looks like cassettes are coming back in a big way…read on, my friends:
Sony able to fit 3,700 Blu-Rays worth of data onto single cassette tape
The new tape will be presented on Monday at the INTERMAG Europe 2014 International magnetics conference held in Germany, according to the Los Angeles Times. IBM will also be involved in the presentation with Sony.
The 185TB of space is a huge jump from 2012 when FujiFilm and IBM teamed up to produce a prototype cassette that was capable of holding 35TB worth of data, reports Forbes. A single Blu-Ray is capable of holding up to 50GB.
The technology used to fit that much data onto the tape is called “sputter deposition,” which is a complicated procedure that involves magnetic crystals, argon ions and polymer film substrate.
Sony has indicated that they wish to sell these storage tapes, though LA Times notes it would likely be more marketable at the tech industry level rather than consumer since there would be a noticeable slowdown in accessing specific data on tape than the more common hard drive.
In a press release Sony noted, “The expansion of cloud services and the creation of new markets to utilize big data have led to a growing need for a data storage media which can store large amounts of information.”
Hopefully that means that Bic will also start making their clear Bic Stik pens with the flat sides again. You could see how much ink is left, they didn’t roll off the table, *and* you could put the pen through the cassette tape wheels to wind, rewind, or unstick a stuck tape.