Swiss IBM researchers succeeded in breaking the memory record
IBM researchers in Rüschlikon have succeeded in saving more data than ever before on a magnetic tape storage system. They wrote data with a storage density of 201 gigabits per square inch onto the storage tape. This corresponds to an increase in storage density of more than 20 times compared to the latest commercially available magnetic tape storage systems.
IBM researchers at the Rüschlikon Research Center near Zurich have succeeded in saving more data than ever before on a magnetic tape storage system. They wrote data with a storage density of 201 gigabits per square inch on the storage tape. announced the IBM research center. The new technology was unveiled Wednesday at a conference in Tsukuba, Japan.
330 TerabyteImage Gallery
This will make it possible to store up to 330 terabytes of uncompressed data on a cassette the size of a palm, according to the scientists' statement. This corresponds to a text volume of 330 million books - if these were lined up, they would be longer than Japan in cross-section.
To achieve the storage density of 201 gigabits per square inch (about 6.45 square centimeters), the scientists used a special storage tape from the Japanese manufacturer Sony Storage Media Solutions. In this case, the magnetic layer was applied by means of cathode sputtering. As a result, the magnetic particles were distributed particularly finely on the tape, which enabled a higher storage density.
Magnetic tape storage is used for local data backup in data centers, for disaster recovery solutions or for compliance with legal requirements for data retention, according to the release. However, the industry is also using them for new areas, such as big data or cloud computing.
Magnetic tape storage was invented more than 60 years ago. According to the research centre, the first tapes had a storage capacity of just two megabytes. The technology now presented in Japan increases the storage capacity by a factor of 165,000,000. (Source: IBM)
