Iconic IBM storage triumph underscores enduring relevance of magnetic tapes, exceeding decade-spanning records after 63 years.
In a groundbreaking development, IBM Research has announced a significant advancement in tape storage technology. This latest demonstration promises a potential increase in capacity of 110,000,000 times compared to IBM's first tape drive product, a leap made over the past six decades.
The breakthrough represents the equivalent of a 220 terabyte tape cartridge, a size that could comfortably fit in the palm of your hand. This is more than a 22-fold improvement over IBM's current enterprise class tape product and an 88-fold improvement over the latest industry-standard magnetic tape product, LTO6.
Since 2002, IBM has been working closely with FUJIFILM on the optimization of its dual-coat magnetic tape based on barium ferrite (BaFe) particles. The collaboration has led to various technology improvements, including a dramatic increase in the precision of controlling the position of the read-write heads.
IBM researchers developed several new technologies to achieve 123 billion bits per square inch, including advanced servo control technologies, enhanced write field head technology, and signal-processing algorithms. The new write field head technology enables the use of much finer BaFe particles, allowing for higher areal recording densities.
The new detection methods enable the use of a reader that is only 90nm in width. These advancements have resulted in an areal recording density of 123 billion bits of uncompressed data per square inch on low-cost, particulate magnetic tape.
The record was achieved using a new, advanced prototype tape developed by FUJIFILM Corporation of Japan, in collaboration with IBM scientists. IBM Research scientists are exploring the integration of tape technology with current cloud object storage systems such as OpenStack Swift, aiming to enable object storage on tape and allow users to migrate cold data to an extremely low-cost, highly durable cloud-based storage tier.
Tape storage remains a promising medium for large amounts of data due to its transferability of data in Linear Tape File System applications and its low energy consumption. With more than 500 exabytes of data residing in tape storage systems, according to IT analyst firm Coughlin Associates, the potential for this technology is clear.
This is the fourth time in less than ten years that IBM Research and FUJIFILM have collaborated to achieve such a feat. The company involved in the development of the new high-resolution magnetic tape that achieves a recording density of 123 billion bits of uncompressed data per square centimeter is IBM.
Interestingly, 220 terabytes of data is comparable to 1.37 trillion mobile text messages or the text of 220 million books. This new development underscores IBM's commitment to pushing the boundaries of technology and driving innovation in the field of data storage.
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