IBM brought back the magnetic tape storage by setting up a new record in Data Transfer Rate


Tape storage is in the current course the most secure, energy efficient and cost-efficient answer for storing large amounts of backup and archival data, as well as for new technologies such as Big Data and cloud computing.

This new record a real record density is more than 20 times the areal density used in modern state of the art commercial tape runs such as the IBM TS1155 enterprise tape drive, and it enables the potential to register up to about 330 terabytes (TB) of uncompressed data on a particular tape cartridge that would fit in the palm of your hand. 330 terabytes of data are similar to the text of 330 million books, which would fill a bookshelf that extends slightly beyond the northeastern to the southwestern-most tip of Japan.

Magnetic tape data area is currently experiencing a revival. With this achievement, IBM scientists demonstrate the viability of extending to scale the tape roadmap for another decade.

“Tape has traditionally been used for video archives, backup files, copies for disaster recovery and maintenance of information on-premise, but the industry is also growing to off-premise applications in the cloud,” said IBM Fellow Evangelos Eleftheriou. “While faltered tape is expected to cost a little more to make than current commercial tape that uses Barium ferrite (BaFe), the potential for very high volume will make the cost per TB very attractive, offering this technology practical for cold storage in the cloud.”

To achieve 201 billion bits per square inch, IBM researchers detailed several new technologies, including:

  • Innovative signal-processing algorithms for the data flow, based on noise-predictive detection principles, which allow reliable operation at a linear weight of 818,000 bits per inch with an ultra-narrow 48nm wide tunneling magneto-resistive (TMR) reader.
  • A set of first servo control technologies that when mixed enable head positioning with an accuracy of better than 7 nanometers. This coupled with a 48nm wide (TMR) hard disk drive read head allows a track density of 246,200 tracks per inch, a 13-fold increase over a state of the art TS1155 drive.
  • A novel low impedance tape head technology that allows the use of very smooth tape media