New magnetic tape technology with the size of 185 TB by Sony

Sony has increased the capacity of magnetic tape, which is widely used for data backups

 

Nowadays Magnetic tape is a key component in modern digital systems which  is required to keep modern online systems reliable. Sony announced a new breakthrough at the INTERMAG Europe 2014 international magnetics conference in Dresden, related to magnetic tape technology that keeps the medium relevant by allowing a tape cartridge to carry 74 times the data of a conventional data tape, or the equivalent of 3,700 Blu-ray discs.

In day to day life, tapes were replaced so universally by hard discs, flash drives and optical media including CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays that it often comes as a surprise to learn that magnetic tape is still widely used as back up memory for servers and databases.

 

  Sony uses a new “sputter” technique to deposit fine nano-grain magnetic particles which are much smaller than those found in conventional tapes and it improves the storage capacity of the material. These particles are lined up in an orderly fashion rather than landing at random on the underlayer.

This uniformity was achieved by using an electrostatic discharge to force argon ions into the target material, which forms it into a thin, uniform layer. It involves having the magnetic particles of both the same average size (about 7.7 nanometers) and lined up in the same direction. In addition, the polymer underlayer has been re-engineered to make it much smoother, so the particles lie more evenly. The result is a tape material that Sony boasts has the world's highest recording density by area.

Sony says that it is currently working on commercializing the new tape material, as well as improving the sputter technique to achieve even greater recording densities.

 

Source: Sony